Kit Question

[Jocelyn]

All the kits say 30 bottles, but im lucky if I get 26 after racking off the lees am I doing something wrong here? Can you actually get 30 bottles out of a kit? This has not been a concern for me yet because I have been making low cost kits but I don't want to loose 5-6 bottles of a premium kit...
Also at what stage does one bulk age? Would it be after the clarifying agents are added? Or right after you put in the carboy?

 

[salcoco]

28 is the best I have made. I would remeasure your fermenter to insure you have 23 liters.
bulk aging begins after adding clarifiers and racking off the lees. add oak at this time to age as desired.

 

[DoctorCAD]

Take anything that fits through the racking cane. It won't sit long on the lees, so it really doesn't hurt the wine.

I've gotten 30 or more from most every kit I make.

Bulk age after everything is done but before you bottle.

 

[Dugger]

This is typical for new wine makers because of the fear of sediment being racked over. When I first made wine I avoided sediment and had to do a lot of topping up and would quite often get less than 30 bottles. Now I rack over everything that will go through the hose and almost always get 30 bottles or more.
My suggestion would be to rack over as much as you can from the bucket to the carboy, then rack again as much as you can after fermentation is complete, do your stabilizing and clarification and when most of the sediment has dropped out, rack again. This is where you can begin your bulk aging, topping up if necessary. Whatever sediment is left put it in a bottle under airlock and let it settle and you will be able to reclaim some wine.
Bottom line - don't be afraid to afraid to rack over sediment. It contains a lot of wine - at some point down the road you will be sediment free and have lost little of the good stuff!

 

[catharus]

I just did my first wine kit, and got 28 bottles from it. Also, my friend and I were pretty drunk after bottling, so I'm guessing we drank the other two!

I was using a winexpert kit, and I found the clearing agent really made the sediment stick to the bottom (I think it was almost like a jelly), so I was able to empty all of the wine out of the carboy without sucking up sediment.

I started off with 23L for sure--maybe even just a bit more.

 

[Rocky]

Jocelyn, I used to puzzle over the same thing when I began making wine from kits and buckets of juice. If you start with exactly 23 liters of juice, for example, there is no way to get more than 30 2/3 each 750 ml bottles at the end and that assumes one bottles everything, sediment and all, unless something is added somewhere in the process. Therein lies the answer to the mystery that confounds you. Two points: there is always some sediment which is a solid and is therefore removed from clear wine and if someone is getting more than 30 bottles of wine at the end, they either start with more than 23 liters of juice or they add something along the way, e.g. the infamous "topping up" that you read so much about or they add a grape pack or an f-pack or raisins. To me, topping up is really "investing" finished wine in one's developing wine with no net return. I don't top up, rather I size down my fermenting vessels to accommodate the amount of wine I have after racking. On a good day due to racking and copious "QA sampling," I get 27 or 28 bottles from both kits and buckets of juice assuming a did not use I grape pack, raisins, etc.

 

[bkisel]

29-31 is what I usually get.

 

[blackspanish777]

Lol the first kit I made we drank a couple of bottles straight from the carboy lol. But I think we had about 25


Making wine in South Texas since March 2014

 

[DoctorCAD]

This is a first racking that I did over the weekend. This is what you should be seeing with a kit wine.

There are about 2 cups from what would be a full carboy. All that was left in the original fermenting bucket was less than 1/4" of packed lees and a small amount of wine that I couldn't suck up with the auto-siphen.

I will top up in about a week.

 

[kevinlfifer]

I get 28-29 but that includes topping off to get to a carboy with no head space.