First Timer

[Rice_Guy]

Oxygen is the enemy of wine!
* find a 3 gallon on Craig’s list, or the wine toy store, or internet ** best
* find three 1 gallon bottles, ** best choice/ I have done this one
* find 3 gallons of marbles to fill the air space
* keep it under at least 5 inches Hg of vacuum
* add 3 gallons of wine
* one commercial winery I know bleeds nitrogen slowly in their plastic tanks
* insert a heavyweight turkey cooking bag and fill it with 3 gallons of water, seal it and find a 3 gallon(s) before you rack.
* find a flexible 5 gallon LDPE camping jug and a silicone burper cork, squeeze all except an inch of air out, short term hold, , , , find a carboy when you rack, ** I have done this one
* drink it young, , now
an interesting problem, we all fight to find the right container at racking time

 

[Sunshine Wine]

Oxygen is the enemy of wine!
* find a 3 gallon on Craig’s list, or the wine toy store, or internet ** best
* find three 1 gallon bottles, ** best choice/ I have done this one
* find 3 gallons of marbles to fill the air space
* keep it under at least 5 inches Hg of vacuum
* add 3 gallons of wine
* one commercial winery I know bleeds nitrogen slowly in their plastic tanks
* insert a heavyweight turkey cooking bag and fill it with 3 gallons of water, seal it and find a 3 gallon(s) before you rack.
* find a flexible 5 gallon LDPE camping jug and a silicone burper cork, squeeze all except an inch of air out, short term hold, , , , find a carboy when you rack, ** I have done this one
* drink it young, , now
an interesting problem, we all fight to find the right container at racking time

Great, will see what I can find. On a side note, this is pure juice. No water added. Do I need to add water to the juice at all? Thought if so, it might solve my problem, but don't want to dilute my wine if I should not add the water(filtered of course)... Thank you for the help!

 

[Rice_Guy]

. . . . this is pure juice. No water added. Do I need to add water to the juice at all? ...!

* water dilutes flavors, , , yes the accounting department always wanted us to reduce cost of goods so technically “sugar water” can be added, , , as you add more you transform this grape wine into a sugar/water wine
* if you read posts you will find Fpacks (flavor) as used in kit wines. Kits add water but are formulated foods where acid / sugar etc are balanced to make room for the eventual Fpack addition.
Kits are a good place for a first time wine maker since thinking about balance is done for you. They also list the steps, have measured sorbate and bentonite chemicals
* some of us add something else, ie what is missing. Mom’s variety of rhurbarb has low color so I add a few percent raspberry, dandelion has no nutritional value so all recipes add something as a backbone that the yeast will ferment, peach is low on acid so I add 40% rhurbarb, concord has no tannin but lots of aroma so I use it like water when making elderberry which is low on aroma.
How good of a cook are you? This is looking at ingredients as building blocks.
* back to your 6 gallon carboy, another fix is find a complementary flavor(s) and add 3 gallons of that. This will change your grape wine into something else though.

 

[Scooter68]

Getting confused here - Do we have two different wine makers here with two different batches or two people posting about the same batch MBurly31 and Sunshine_Wine.

If it's two different wine makers AND two different batches perhaps a new thread should be started to keep responses clear.

 

[sour_grapes]

Cool! Is there anything else I need to put in it besides potassium debate? How much for 3 gallons? And I was reading above threads and some say to back sweeten just before bottling... I am assuming I need to rack(which, if I understand right, is transferring from the original bucket to the carboy and letting it sit for quite some time). My carboy is a 6 gallon, so it is actually too big for my 3 gallons of wine...anything I can do the remedy that? Thanks for the help!

Yes. I should have mentioned that you will need to add potassium metabisulfite, too (AKA K-meta). This is necessary to prevent spoilage and premature oxidation. You can buy K-meta in powdered form, or as "Campden tablets." For 3 gallons, you should use 1/8 tsp of the powder, or 3 tablets.

You will not get a good result if you let 3 gallons of wine sit in a 6 gallon carboy for an extended period. As to how to remedy this? You could get a 3 gallon carboy. Or you could buy 3 one-gallon jugs. Or you could make more wine!

 

[Sunshine Wine]

You will find it is extremely hard for a home wine maker to stop a fermentation.
Most/ (all)of us get sweeter wine by adding sugar after it is done fermenting and then treat the wine with metabisulphite Sorbate can prevent reproduction but will not keep yeast in the system from metabolising.
I will age 9 plus months to let the solids settle naturally and also starve the yeast out thereby minimize chemical treatments, but sometimes it fails, should probably wait a year always
The fizzy will be gone in a year. We hear the word ‘patience ‘ in this forum. All of us have gone through the learning curve

For your earlier note about taking a gravity reading in a partial bucket, if I am lazy I tilt the pail to the point where a hygrometer floats. The normal is measure in a cylinder.

Ok, so what is the difference between potassium sorbate and metabisulphite s orbate? And what does SG mean? Thanks!

 

[sour_grapes]

Ok, so what is the difference between potassium sorbate and metabisulphite s orbate? And what does SG mean? Thanks!

There are two important chemicals:

Potassium sorbate: this prevents existing yeast cells from reproducing (budding). It does not kill them. You only need to use this is if you intend to add sugar to your wine after fermentation is over ("Backsweetening")

Potassium metabisulfite (or K-meta): this kills unwanted bacteria (but not yeast), and it prevents oxidation of your wine. Again, this does not kill yeast. You need to use this to help preserve your wine and let it age.

SG means "specific gravity," which is a measure of the density of the wine. Therefore, it tells you how much sugar is left in your fermenting wine.

 

[Sunshine Wine]

There are two important chemicals:

Potassium sorbate: this prevents existing yeast cells from reproducing (budding). It does not kill them. You only need to use this is if you intend to add sugar to your wine after fermentation is over ("Backsweetening")

Potassium metabisulfite (or K-meta): this kills unwanted bacteria (but not yeast), and it prevents oxidation of your wine. Again, this does not kill yeast. You need to use this to help preserve your wine and let it age.

SG means "specific gravity," which is a measure of the density of the wine. Therefore, it tells you how much sugar is left in your fermenting wine.

I thought that is what SG meant, but wanted to be sure. I may add sugar to back sweeten, but not sure yet. I added sugar initially, when I first started, so it might be fine. I did do an initial SG when I started, so I have the starting #. If I do not add any more sugar, then I only need to put in the PM(K-META).

 

[sour_grapes]

I thought that is what SG meant, but wanted to be sure. I may add sugar to back sweeten, but not sure yet. I added sugar initially, when I first started, so it might be fine. I did do an initial SG when I started, so I have the starting #. If I do not add any more sugar, then I only need to put in the PM(K-META).

This all sounds good. Perhaps one exception:

. I added sugar initially, when I first started, so it might be fine.

Sugar added before vs. after fermentation have two very different roles. Any sugar added before fermentation will be converted to alcohol, and thus will increase your ABV, and have no effect on sweetness. Any sugar added for backsweetening will, of course, make the wine sweeter.

What was your starting SG?

 

[Sunshine Wine]

This all sounds good. Perhaps one exception:



Sugar added before vs. after fermentation have two very different roles. Any sugar added before fermentation will be converted to alcohol, and thus will increase your ABV, and have no effect on sweetness. Any sugar added for backsweetening will, of course, make the wine sweeter.

What was your starting SG?

1.170...the hydrometer touched the bottom of the bucket before I added the sugar, and this number is what I got after adding it.

 

[MBurly31]

Ya sunshine wine posted on the thread I started...little hard to follow but thanks for all of your help!!

 

[Sunshine Wine]

Ya sunshine wine posted on the thread I started...little hard to follow but thanks for all of your help!!

Sorry! New to a forum...not sure how it works....

 

[sour_grapes]

1.170...the hydrometer touched the bottom of the bucket before I added the sugar, and this number is what I got after adding it.

That starting SG is likely problematic. If your wine were to ferment fully, it would be ~23% ABV. Wine yeasts generally cannot tolerate that high of an ABV value. What is your current SG? You may wind up with your sweet wine after all!

 

[Scooter68]

Suhnshine - Just start a new thread.

When you have a separate issue, especially when similar it can be confusing to others trying to figure out which questions are being answered in the responses.