Mosti Mondiale Fresh Juice Red Zinfandel

[MLawrence]

Ok, looking for some advice on my Fresh Juice Zinfandel. It came to my place still mostly frozen, but I was able to warm it up over night with the help of a heating pad. Within 24 hours of brining the pail inside, it was all liquid and I took my first S.G. reading. After adjusting for temperature, it was 1.054.






Question 1: Do you think thiscould be entirelyattributable to the early fermentation before the juice got to George's place? I checked some bottles of commercially made red zin we have here at the house and they were all 13.5% ABV, so I would expect an initial S.G. in the neighborhood of 1.090.


George's note that came with the Frozen Juice said that the bucket likely wouldn't include a full 23L because of room needed for expansion during freezing. I decided to check my volume today, to find out how much I actually had. I had an empty AllJuice bucket on hand and filled it with water in half gallon increments until the water level appeared to be equal to the Fresh Juice level. Before I started, I measured both buckets to make sure they were the same size and dimensions so that a side by side comparison would be valid. Anyway, it appears my fresh juice is only somewhere around 5 gallons give or take a couple pints because of the imprecise nature of my visual comparison.


Question 2: Am I going to be ok transferring this to a 6 gallon carboy for secondary? I'll put in an immediate order for a 5 gal carboy in order to get it in time for the first racking, but I doubt George would be able to get it here in time for secondary fermentation, which I expect might come as early as Tuesday at the rate things are going.


Thanks!
Matt

 

[Joanie]

I'm planning on putting my fresh Amarone in a 5 gallon carboy. I think I have a little more than 5 but I can use the extra for topping up. I say find yourself a 5 gallon carboy!

 

[Joanie]

Oh... and your answer to the first question is yes!

 

[MLawrence]

Thanks, Joan.


I figured the low specific gravity was fine, but I'm glad to have some reassurance. I'm very excited about this one. It smells great. My wife has recently taken to Zinfandel and I think she would be pretty disappointed if anything went wrong with it.

 

[geocorn]

Matt,


Don't forget EVERYTHING I sell is guaranteed. Based on my frozen wines, I feel very confident in the results, but if you (or your wife) are not satisfied, we will replace the kit. Thanks for taking part in this test.

 

[MLawrence]

No worries, George. It smells EXCELLENT and I have every reason to believe it will turn out to be a top notch wine. I'm just glad you gave us out of towners the opportunity to get in on this buy.