just a question

[halifaxwino]

just a question about sediment

below are photos of my Riesling which is on the secondary fermentation stage. I was wondering does the sediment on the bottom effect the taste if left there for a long time? im currently on day 5 i have 7 more days for it to sit. is this normal or should it be siphoned again into another carboy. just wondering what others do. my last few batches have not had this much. i understand different wines do different things, i'm just wondering
Thanks

 

[cpfan]

Normal. 7 days is NOT a long time in the wine world.

Steve

 

[halifaxwino]

thanks Steve, it will be a long time before i actually have a bottle. 2weeks more haha. no ill let it sit though in the bottles for 3 months or so. or till summer. it still has to be degassed yet and cleared. thanks for the response

 

[arcticsid]

Thanks from me too Steve, I was actually going to post the same exact question today, I too am in the secondary at about day 5 and have about the same percentage of setiment and about the same consistency. This is an orange wine I started with fresh fruit.

But how long is too long for the secondary to sit with setiment like that?

The recipe I based this batch on recommended leaving it in the secondary for 30 days, seems pretty long.

I tranfered it .990.

Thanks
Troy

 

[halifaxwino]

just one more question how does the color look on the wine? is it fine for a white wine? i know i still need to clarify it still, to me it looks like a brownish orange, smells and tastes fine.

 

[Wade E]

Color looks fine at this stage halfax and would be very hard to tell if it wasnt anyway as white and fruit wines will change very much during fermentation and until clearing as sediment is tirred up and then settles out. As far as contact to Secondary lees goes a few months is not out of the question and is what some wineries actually do on purpose to give the wine more mouthfeel and complexity and this process is called aging Surlies. This also lets the lees compact so that it is much easier to rack off of without disturbing the lees. Do not confuse what I am posting here with Primary lees as that contains a lot of solids that can go bad and give off flavors. With the secondary lees though it is advisable to very gently stir the lees very little so viable yeast cells dont get buried, if they do then they will actually run out of sugars to eat and will actually cannibalize themselves and stress out giving off flavors.

 

[halifaxwino]

Color looks fine at this stage halfax and would be very hard to tell if it wasnt anyway as white and fruit wines will change very much during fermentation and until clearing as sediment is tirred up and then settles out. As far as contact to Secondary lees goes a few months is not out of the question and is what some wineries actually do on purpose to give the wine more mouthfeel and complexity and this process is called aging Surlies. This also lets the lees compact so that it is much easier to rack off of without disturbing the lees. Do not confuse what I am posting here with Primary lees as that contains a lot of solids that can go bad and give off flavors. With the secondary lees though it is advisable to very gently stir the lees very little so viable yeast cells dont get buried, if they do then they will actually run out of sugars to eat and will actually cannibalize themselves and stress out giving off flavors.

thanks wade. i always appreciate your feed back