couple of questions

[gunwolf]

Hi all, I have been away for a bit. had some health issues and recently moved.

here's my questions:

when racking a grape wine(concord) what do you use to top off the wine in the carboy? I usually use sugar water(which I don't like using) or top with a similair wine. here's my issue, I wish to ferment to a dry wine and don't want to add any more sugars, and I don't want to add anymore water. but the last time I added some complete wine(store bought) my fermentation stopped completely and I was left with a semi sweet.

also after sanitizing my carboys they just don't seem to "dry" quickly enough to cap and store them,any suggestions?

sorry about the silly questions, but I've looked and can't find the answers I'm looking for.

 

[Rocky]

Not sure about the quantity of wine you are talking about, but I see two alternatives that I would consider. First, top of with a dry red wine with as low an alcohol content as you can find. I believe that Taylors used to make a "light" red wine that was about 7-8%. In the past experience, the alcohol may have stopped the fermentation. Secondly, and this would be my preferred solution would be to rack into smaller containers and fill them to within 2" of the airlock.

Regarding the carboy question, I keep K-meta in a spray bottle and when I clean out a carboy, I dry the outside with a towel, shoot some K-meta into it and invert it on a rack to dry. The solution adds some protection until the carboy drys by air and gravity. It works for me.

 

[djrockinsteve]

If you want to keep your wines dry and you are short on filling them you need in the future to make more wine. You can also add something glass to take up space such as marbles or chandelier glass pieces. Put them in a cloth bag to ease removing them. Another option is to use several smaller carboys ex; instead of one five gallon, how about 4 fours and a half gallon or a three gallon, two ones and a half. You get the picture.

I don't add sugar water to wine. I will add some sugar to wine and invert it. I add inverted sugar to all of my wines even the merlot, which is meant to be dry but adding just a tiny amount really brings out the flavor. .994 or .995 is all you need.

If you do add sugar you will need to add sorbate to prevent refermentation or age, then filter out any possible remaining yeasts.

Hope you are feeling better now.

 

[gunwolf]

thanks for the replies guys, I am making a 3 gal batch. I forgot to include that info.
I have several 3 gal and 1 gal carboys, I only have one 5 gal which I usually reserve for my apple/cinnamon when the local apples come in (soon) should I start keeping some of whatever I'm making in the 1 gal carboys as a topper?