Lurking around for few days......

[Hel]

...and saw lots of good advice so I signed up.
My b/f and I are new to wine making. He is getting blind and can't do his hobbies so I suggested wine making. Long story short, here we are!
After buying a kit and all that comes with it, we are ready to bottle are first merlot.
I noticed the carboy had few, maybe 4-5 bigger bubbles, 3 tiny ones around the neck, had slight weird flavor and smell so we racked it to primary fermenter and degassed.
I found online it could be sulphur so we dropped few cleaned silver coins in. Started filtering it with prefilter bact to clean carboy. That produced about 1.5 inch of small bubbles foam.
We filtered it again with other filter into new carboy, now with very little foam. The taste and the odor is gone. I am not a drinker so I can't say much but the wine tastes good and strong. It is dry.
Now the question is, should we let it sit more or bottle it? SG is 0.098 so it is perfect. I just wonder about what if there is still something that might produce bubbles.
Now the other dilemma. Started 1 gallon kit Moscato and it is about 30 hours and no fermentation. My b/f put airlock on it, I found online it will suffocate the yeast, so I took it off few hours ago and nothing. I started 1/2 pocket of yeast starter with the must. All good till I poured it in. It was fizzing and nothing hours later. So I did the other half, added nutrients too and just gently poured it on top. At least now it wasn't fizzing, it floats and big bubbles forming. Fingers crossed! But what if nothing happens again? The starting sg was 1080.
I also want say big thank you to all contributing to this forum!
We also have grapefruit passion rose in secondary now and all is well. All the racking, testing, made me tipsy but I will have to learn to like wine now having it going. It is so much fun and eventually I would love to create my own recipe. Back in Europe, growing up, we made wines from leftover fruit pulp, black currants etc.
We live in Florida so white wine will be a pain till I get old fridge but that could help with making cheeses too. Any cheese makers here?
Thank you for all info and help.

 

[Ajmassa]

Welcome!

The merlot you’ve got nothing to worry about. It’s dry, but still better to age it longer to be sure before bottling. Helps it clear and for co2 to dissipate on its own.
Muscat — I bet it’s fermenting by now. Airlock/no airlock you are both right. No wrong way. Once it gets going tho it does help to stir and give the yeast some o2.
Good luck. ( I may be wrong but The silver coin trick is actually meant to be copper. And the racking and o2 was what actually helped blow off any odor most likely)

 

[Hel]

Welcome!

The merlot you’ve got nothing to worry about. It’s dry, but still better to age it longer to be sure before bottling. Helps it clear and for co2 to dissipate on its own.
Muscat — I bet it’s fermenting by now. Airlock/no airlock you are both right. No wrong way. Once it gets going tho it does help to stir and give the yeast some o2.
Good luck. ( I may be wrong but The silver coin trick is actually meant to be copper. And the racking and o2 was what actually helped blow off any odor most likely)

Thank you for input! I knew about the copper but I read online silver does it too so whatever did the trick, it worked.
The moscato is only fizzing. You can hear it put ear close to it. There is no visible anything, no bubbles, no foam. It is all cloudy. But the sg is down to 1050 from 1080 so it is doing something.

 

[Ajmassa]

Thank you for input! I knew about the copper but I read online silver does it too so whatever did the trick, it worked.
The moscato is only fizzing. You can hear it put ear close to it. There is no visible anything, no bubbles, no foam. It is all cloudy. But the sg is down to 1050 from 1080 so it is doing something.

Great! SG dropping is the only thing that matters!
Whites generally ferment less vigorously than reds. Sounds like you are right on track.

 

[sour_grapes]

Welcome! Glad to have you aboard.

Yes, both silver and copper will bind sulfur compounds strongly. However, I don't recommend dipping either one into your wine. The acidic environment of wine can dissolve unknown (and possibly unhealthy) amounts of the metal into your wine. Better to use a controlled dose of the noble metal (Ag or Cu) using a measured amount of solution (i.e., copper sulfate) or Reduless.

 

[Hel]

Welcome! Glad to have you aboard.

Yes, both silver and copper will bind sulfur compounds strongly. However, I don't recommend dipping either one into your wine. The acidic environment of wine can dissolve unknown (and possibly unhealthy) amounts of the metal into your wine. Better to use a controlled dose of the noble metal (Ag or Cu) using a measured amount of solution (i.e., copper sulfate) or Reduless.

The silver coins are 99.99 silver so I don't worry about it. Those coins picked up the smell and now they have the odor from wine. Wonder it will go away.
We degassed the wine again today, still lots of foam and poured back and forth through whole afternoon (my b/f got some workout) and it is not foaming much. So tomorrow it will get bottled. I took some wine to work to let my boss try it. He is a Greek and they make wine back home and he said it was good s$%^t.
The wine has no bitterness, very nice flavor, no puckery, no yeast after taste. That''s why I don't like wine b/c of the aftertaste but I will drink ours! I am a waitress and tasted many wines. Even the expensive wines taste funny to me.
So far so good then, Will see what the next one will taste like!

 

[sour_grapes]

The silver coins are 99.99 silver so I don't worry about it.

You seem to be under the impression that silver itself is non-toxic. I don't agree.

 

[NorCal]

Good luck with your wine making, sounds like you are on your way! You do not want an uncontrolled amount of heavy metal in your wine. It is not a good practice. The last thing you want is for someone to become ill from drinking your wine.

 

[Intheswamp]

Don't be like Paul Karason .
But there again, you could share the silver-wine with friends family and start your on village of smurphs!

 

[gsf77]

Welcome! These folks here are very good about helping out

 

[Intheswamp]

Er, or should I say "Smurfs". My apology to all the Smurphs out there!