Hello all,
Here's the situation - On the 23'rd of October I pressed my Chambourcin and transferred it to a 6 gallon carboy. SG at the time was about 1.02 or so (at work without my logbook and going from memory). I had planned on leaving it on the skins for longer but I had to go out of town for work unexpectedly and my wife is not involved in my hobby to be a reliable stand-in to punch the cap down and do whats necessary. So I pressed early. When I pressed everything seemed fine (no funky smells or anything) Well, fast forward to yesterday. I got home from my trip Wednesday night and saw that I had a good amount of lees (maybe a little over half an inch). Decided to wait to rack as it was late, so last night I popped the airlock and whoa did it stink. I've never had a problem like this so I immediately got on the net and looked for what to do.
I racked it and had the siphon tube just inside the carboy neck so the wine fanned out and went down the sides of the carboy. I did that twice. Then I took a length of copper pipe (left over from some plumbing I did in the spring) roughed it up with a wire brush, cleaned and sanitized it, and stirred for maybe 5 minutes or so. Lastly, I beat the crap out of it with my wine whip on my cordless drill. In the end, my whole house stunk like rotten eggs. I could not tell if there was any more odor coming off the wine as all I could smell was rotten eggs (even going outside).
So my questions are, Have I done all I can do? Is my wine ruined?
Thanks in advance for any advice or constructive criticism that will help me grow as a winemaker!
-T
Here's the situation - On the 23'rd of October I pressed my Chambourcin and transferred it to a 6 gallon carboy. SG at the time was about 1.02 or so (at work without my logbook and going from memory). I had planned on leaving it on the skins for longer but I had to go out of town for work unexpectedly and my wife is not involved in my hobby to be a reliable stand-in to punch the cap down and do whats necessary. So I pressed early. When I pressed everything seemed fine (no funky smells or anything) Well, fast forward to yesterday. I got home from my trip Wednesday night and saw that I had a good amount of lees (maybe a little over half an inch). Decided to wait to rack as it was late, so last night I popped the airlock and whoa did it stink. I've never had a problem like this so I immediately got on the net and looked for what to do.
I racked it and had the siphon tube just inside the carboy neck so the wine fanned out and went down the sides of the carboy. I did that twice. Then I took a length of copper pipe (left over from some plumbing I did in the spring) roughed it up with a wire brush, cleaned and sanitized it, and stirred for maybe 5 minutes or so. Lastly, I beat the crap out of it with my wine whip on my cordless drill. In the end, my whole house stunk like rotten eggs. I could not tell if there was any more odor coming off the wine as all I could smell was rotten eggs (even going outside).
So my questions are, Have I done all I can do? Is my wine ruined?
Thanks in advance for any advice or constructive criticism that will help me grow as a winemaker!
-T