How long on must?

[Paulc]

These are Sangiovese grapes from Sutter Ridge Vineyards in Cali. M&M wine suppliers are the folks I bought them from. I pressed and racked the wine off the skins last night(SG about 1.000)...I had to work at it a bit so I did get some solids I think but got a total of 3 gal of wine. Hopefully when I am all done I can have 2.5 gal to bottle in the late summer/fall...

I added my 4 oz of med toast french oak after soaking the chips in warm h2o, they smelled awesome. And I added ML bact...hope that works. Yeah the oak chips are in my better bottle which was a pain but that is what I had to work with...Anyway, the wine is still slowly bubbling away which I believe is the last of the sugar being burned by the yeast. Hopefully the ML bact will take hold and it will slowly bubble till the middle of the summer or so.

To avoid the chance of making "geranium wine" I was not going to sorbate this stuff. Just let is sit for a month on the oak chips, rack it and add k-meta and then let it sit for at least 3 months. And depending on how it looks leave it sit some more...Is that the right next steps??

Thanks, Paulc

 

[Paulc]

So I just stumbled onto another post where folks talk about only oaking their wine for 2 weeks and only 1oz of oak...already forgotten how much wine.

Understanding that amount of oak is a personal taste thing; is 4oz for a month in 3 gal of Sangiovese too long in your opinion...? I like oak in my wine.

THanks, Paulc

 

[Rock]

I would start with 2oz and keep sampling every week.after 2 months you coul always add more.Then you will wish you made an other batch because you have been sampling and topping up and know your running low.

 

[Smartdog]

Get a collander (Stainless steel is best) that is just smaller than your fermentor. Put it upside down over the cap. Put a weight (empty sealed plastic jar full of water or even some cleaned and samitized aquarium rocks) on top of the collander to submerge the cap.

 

[Paulc]

good idea on the collander. that is pretty much what I did but I included wrapping the collander in a cheese cloth ferment bag that was kinda elastic to try and keep some more of the junk at the bottle out of the wine. It worked pretty well. I was able to get two layers of cheese cloth around the collander but got sloppy with pressing it down into the must so some solids came over the top and went up the cane.

Paulc

 

[Wade E]

Paul, do not add any sorbate to this batch ever so you are correct there but with the k-meta, dodnt add it in a month but when MLF is done and sometimes that can takes months. You should either get a Chromatography test or a Accuvin Malic acid test kit.
http://www.finevinewines.com/p-1552-223-10.aspx

Here is a Youtube video on how easy ity is.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQhgNMzAw5g[/ame]

here is a Chromatography video
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyegXP6G9r4[/ame]

 

[Paulc]

Thanks for the info/clarification Wade. So I will rack off the oak chips when I think it has enough oak, then top it off some how and let it sit. I will add K-meta before I bottle it.

I have read about using the k-meta solution to sterilize the bottles and then not rinsing the bottle but directly adding wine. The residual k-meta in the bottle is "enough" to protect the wine. So the wine is bottled without adding the measured amount of K-meta to the wine prior to bottling.

Great idea? Terrible idea? Anyone tried this with success?

tia, paulc