degassing/ clearing

[Aaronh]

I racked my Lilac wine off the last major drop of lees and put it in another carboy to continue clearing. Right now the airlock Is moving like a beromiter.


The question I have is about degassing to aleviate the sespension of the slight cloudyness that remains.


Should I only degass before I bottle or is it alright to degass and let it clear for another month or two. Im thinken degassing to soon may relase the Free SO2 and make it lean towards unstabilty. PH is currently at 3.3

 

[Waldo]

Go ahead and degass now. If you havent already done so, you need to stabilize by adding sulphite and sorbate

 

[Wade E]

degassing will not remove SO2 except in very small amounts. Typically what w do is ferment, degas when wine is stable and fine or just let time clear the wine while bulk aging. Some people bulk age for 2 years after degassing. If bulk aging beyond 3 months then you should either check your free SO2 or just add another 1/4 tsp of k-meta to be safe which will still leave you with a lower sulfite level then commercial wine.

 

[Wade E]

degassing will not remove SO2 except in very small amounts. Typically what w do is ferment, degas when wine is stable and fine or just let time clear the wine while bulk aging. Some people bulk age for 2 years after degassing. If bulk aging beyond 3 months then you should either check your free SO2 or just add another 1/4 tsp of k-meta to be safe which will still leave you with a lower sulfite level then commercial wine. Without degassing your wine good your wine may never clear well.

 

[Aaronh]

Ty for the feed back . this batch is rather important to me so im taken verey much care becouse i cant just go out and get more lilacs to brew.Heres a picture of my 3gal lilac before racking. This site seems to freeze up when i do pictures on posts on so im going to try here at work.

 

[Aaronh]

hmm I guess im having the good ole windows vista issue's. I swear ya figure out one bug and another presents its self. So tempted to put xp back on my comp.....

 

[Wade E]

It takes quite a while for the pictures to post on the forum. It is a product that can not be fixed with out a great deal of up grading which requires lots of time and dedication which is just spent better at the store right now so that people get their product on time which works for me.

 

[Aaronh]

oh I hear ya , Im not complainen about the site , its more about the good crack microsoft was smoken when they made the vista security features and background programs for them.It took me less than a minute to post this pic on xp at work.

The sad thing is my connection at home is faster , my home comp is faster , but the vista program really makes life not as easy as they claimed it to be. Too much frosting on the cake I say... way to much.Edited by: Aaronh

 

[Wade E]

Thts why i spent 2 weeks a searchin for a laptop with out Vista and it was a PITA but priceless in the end.

 

[Aaronh]

Well today my sorbate came in and after workI racked my wine off the wee sediment at the bottom. Degassed, added sorbate, 1/2 of a 1/4 tea spoon of K-meta, 3 gallon carboy,.
<DIV id=ms__id30>
<DIV id=ms__id33> I was pondering what to top it off with to lessen the air space a few days ago, water?, "eh no" I thought, "gotta be a white wine, perhaps Chardonnay". Thenearlier today, a miracle happened.
<DIV id=ms__id34> At work we got a few cases of new wines from new Zealand. These are going to be presented by Bird winery's and Trinity Fri night for tasting. My boss told me there was a case of Chardonnay in the cooler under a shelf and to get rid of it. So i dig under the shelf here is a raggedy Ole box. I open it and inside lay 6 1.5 ltr bottles of 2000 Barton &amp; Guestier Chardonnay

. So I pulled one out and gave it a look over and it was as clear as a bell still. Then I removed the fancy wrapping that hides the cork and looked at the bottom... no brown black or discolerment. So I brought it home

, opened the bottle, took a closer look at the cork... perfect! Poured a glass and gave it a smell, no wet dog or basement and then I tasted it... honestly, swear to god, it was the smoothest finish on a Chardonnay I have ever tasted. After letting it breath for about 10 mins in the glass the flavors came back out but the finish was still clean. I personally don't like whites because the sour finish pisses me off

.Anyways I was a bit puzzled because most chardonnays last about 3-5 years before they loose there luster or go bad. So I dug little deeper and found out that the rule of thumbwith whites is, theylast only as long as the winewas well crafted. So in short any bottle under 40$ is a drink in two year bit becausemost of winery's that sell cheap bottles figure cheap people are not going to Celler there wine...
<DIV id=ms__id35>
<DIV id=ms__id36> So.... I grabbed a sample of my wine that i set aside for the wine guys to try tomorrow and added about 2% of the Chardonnay tothe sampleand tasted it... couldn't tell it was in there. Still skeptical about this soon to be 10 year old wine I took a PH test and the PH lvl was a 3.4. It was one almost the same as the Ph of my wine. So I topped it off with the B&amp;G Chardonnay

. I swear its little coincidences like this that make me ponder.
<DIV id=ms__id37>
<DIV id=ms__id38> Anyways I added the sparkliod and gonna let it clear up some more. How long can I leave the wine on the sparkloid after it settles?
<DIV id=ms__id51>
<DIV id=ms__id50>Duh had a few too many glasses

. I ment 8 year old wine lolEdited by: Aaronh

 

[Waldo]

You would probably be ok to leave it for a couple of weeks but I would not personally leave it much longer than taht

 

[Aaronh]

I was kinda figuring leaving the sparkliod on the bottom would be on the same line as leaving it on thelees for too long, if not worse. Just wanted more conformation and from what ive seen from you waldo, ill easly take your advice

 

[univity]

oh I hear ya , Im not complainen about the site , its more about the good crack microsoft was smoken when they made the vista security features and background programs for them.It took me less than a minute to post this pic on xp at work.

The sad thing is my connection at home is faster , my home comp is faster , but the vista program really makes life not as easy as they claimed it to be. Too much frosting on the cake I say... way to much.

I have vista machine at home and have no problems posting - but i have a lot of the background security stuff turned off as I have a pretty good firewall set up at home. First thing I do after installing vista is disable the UAC (UAC = that dumb "cancel or allow" bull$%@#)

 

[Aaronh]

Ya I have had the user account control disabled from day one and only Use CA anti virus , spy-were,pop up exedera. I just have to sit down and look threw the logs to and see if I can find out why its treating the Pic upload like a pop up add. Just a theory.
<DIV id=ms__id125>
<DIV id=ms__id128>Anyways, I got to talk and meet with Steve Bird from Bird Winery and John Hancock from Trinity Hills Winery. Very nice folks from what I gathered. Very nice wine I must say too. The two wines featured were "Trinity Hills Winery", Syrah, Hawks bay $33US and "Steve Bird Winery", Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough$30 US a bottle.
<DIV id=ms__id135> New Zealand Syrah &gt; California Syrah.There wines were very fruitycompared to California's. The syrah's finish wasn't a burn likeCalifornia's or Australia's Rosmont Shirazbut a nice calm fruity spice.


<DIV id=ms__id130> Steve John and there sales rep tried my Lilac wine. I told them its right out of the womb young and the alcohol will be pretty present.Steve and John said it was wonderful except the sweetness andalcohol content was a bittoo much. They really loved the bouquet," A wine with potential"

There sales rep took a sip set it down and didn't have much to say. John asked me how I made it. AsI explained and got to what yeast I used , Lavlen EC- 1118, he exclaimed, "excellent choice".
<DIV id=ms__id131>
<DIV id=ms__id132> All in all it was a great experience for me to mingle a bit with a couple of the elite top 10 new Zealand wine brewers. I just feel a bit cheated because I was on the clock and had work responsibility's that pulled me away when conversation got deep in the art of wine making.

I will defiantly never forget it and shoot for lower alch contents in my future wines... well most of them

.
<DIV id=ms__id134>
<DIV id=ms__id133>On a side note if some of you folks like Syrah or turned away from it because of the intense spicyfinish try Trinity Hills Syrah, Hawkes Bay and see the difference.Only 300 cases available in the US. I have 2 bottles myself one for aging and the other to drink when I get the urge.

 

[Dr Rich]

I'm in the midst of my second batch of wine ever. First time I used a Mosti Mondiale for Pinot Noir and it came out great. I'm trying Winexpert Cab Sauv this time, and there is quite a difference in the instructions. In particular, the MM kit said to degas 4 times in 24 hours before topping off. The Winexpert kit says to degas after adding clarifiers then let it sit for 14 days. Thoughts?
Edited by: Dr Rich

 

[Wade E]

I would degas very well before adding clarifier and the stir in the clearing agent. The reason for this is that once ou add the fining agent you should be very well topped off and wont have the room to stir aggressively.I have never heard of anyone degassing their wine too much with a drill stirrer.
Edited by: wade

 

[smikes]

My Winexpert Cab Sauv. definatly needed to be degassed more,as I ended up pulling corks anpouring out into a carboy and hooking it up to a brake bleeded for 10 days before rebottling.