Gross lees or more space in carboy

[TimK]

Here's a dilemma that I faced yesterday. We did our first press a couple of days ago. I let it sit for about a day and a half and then started the first racking, to get the wine off the gross lees. I was going into a 3 gallon carboy and started with roughly 3.75 of pressed juice. I figured I would get pretty close to the 3 gallons, maybe just shy, but enough to call it good in the carboy. Well with the carboy about 90% full the wine was not so clear going in. I am assuming I was starting to bring in some of the lees I didn't want, but there seemed to be to much space (air) in the carboy. With this dilemma at hand I decided to continue racking to eliminate the space (air) hoping this will be the lesser of two evils. Since we are doing a malolactic ferm, we can't add SO2 for protection. So the question is, which way should I have gone? No lees and more space (air) or more lees and less air? Thoughts? Thanks.
Peace
TimK
Pic just cause we had a blast

 

[ibglowin]

Definitely more lees and less air. With fresh grapes clearing is a long multi step process so I don't worry much about gross lees especially at press time. You just need to make sure you have enough wine left over to top up when you do rack the gross lees off or a smaller vessel to rack down to.

 

[TimK]

Thanks. I was hoping I went in the right direction. Once I finally rack off the lees, any suggestion on what to top off with? Since this is uncharted territory and I didn't think that far ahead, I don't have any previous made Malbec lying around. And I would like to keep it in the 3 gallon carboy if I could. Thanks.

 

[wineforfun]

Go buy Malbec at the store and top up with that.

 

[grapeman]

I have to agree. Some of what you had at the end was probably fine lees and will add food for the malolactic bacteria - so it is a good thing. I would probably go ahead now and inoculate with the mlb to take advantage of the lees, then when it is done, go ahead and rack it and sulfite it. If you are too low, buy a bottle of Malbec to fill the carboy then.

 

[ibglowin]

Don't worry too much about (some) headspace during MLF as the MLB will be producing enough CO2 to protect the wine.

 

[MattWI]

Sanitized marbles or something similar will also work, but you need to be very careful with them for obvious reasons.

 

[TimK]

Don't worry too much about (some) headspace during MLF as the MLB will be producing enough CO2 to protect the wine.

I thought only a little CO2 was being produced during MLF and not enough to protect the wine from oxygen.

 

[ibglowin]

Its enough to protect the wine as long as you have a small amount of head space. Obviously you wouldn't want to have 3 gallons of wine in a 6 gallon carboy's worth but your amount should be fine.

 

[TimK]

Right on. Thanks for the help.

 

[HillPeople]

You can always keep the headspace full of CO2 at every stage.
I do this with all carboys. A CO2 tank is a good investment IMHO.