I've not been in this hobby for very long, my experience is limited to a Welches white grape juice test run batch, then a WE Cab, and a gallon of Joe's Ancient Orange Mead. The WE kit I did seemed to be pretty straight forward if I remember correctly, it's been a few years since I did it.But now I've started a Winexpert Lodi Old Vines Zin premuim kit with skins and the instructions don't seem to make as much sense to me. They're a little vague in some areas.
My main concern right now is that the instructions don't say what size container to use after the secondary fermentation step. It goes from the ferment bucket into a 6 gallon carboy, but then no further instructions on size after that. I'm trying to peice together clues of omission or clues from further steps, but it shouldn't be this hard.
These are the instructions for the kit I have
http://www.winexpert.com/pdfs/Eclipse Grapeskins - Feb 2013.pdf
On step 3 it says to rack and you should have about a liter of space left in your carboy. I have to assume that this is a 6 gallon carboy because a 5 gallon one is too small to contain it all, let alone degas. I racked into my bucket to degas so as to prevent a OC2 volcano, then racked it back into the 6 gal carboy. Additionally, you have to add oak cubes, so 6 gallon. but why don't they say this?
Step 4 doesn't say anything about which size to use either, but it says to not top up and that the wine will not oxidize during this step. Again, I have too much wine to fit in the 5 gallon, so it appears as if they want you to keep it in the 6 gallon carboy. I plan on racking again in 3 months and bulk aging for a year, so I topped off a 5 gallon carboy to 1/2" from the bung and put the remainder in a wine bottle with a winesaver suction cap for the purpose of topping off later, the rest went down the drain It wasn't much, but it's still a shame.
Am I missing something? Am I doing it right? I don't want to leave this wine with so much air in the vessel for bulk aging, or even the 28 days it says to clear. Did I screw up something earlier that left me with too much wine at this point? How would you interpret these instructions?
My main concern right now is that the instructions don't say what size container to use after the secondary fermentation step. It goes from the ferment bucket into a 6 gallon carboy, but then no further instructions on size after that. I'm trying to peice together clues of omission or clues from further steps, but it shouldn't be this hard.
These are the instructions for the kit I have
http://www.winexpert.com/pdfs/Eclipse Grapeskins - Feb 2013.pdf
On step 3 it says to rack and you should have about a liter of space left in your carboy. I have to assume that this is a 6 gallon carboy because a 5 gallon one is too small to contain it all, let alone degas. I racked into my bucket to degas so as to prevent a OC2 volcano, then racked it back into the 6 gal carboy. Additionally, you have to add oak cubes, so 6 gallon. but why don't they say this?
Step 4 doesn't say anything about which size to use either, but it says to not top up and that the wine will not oxidize during this step. Again, I have too much wine to fit in the 5 gallon, so it appears as if they want you to keep it in the 6 gallon carboy. I plan on racking again in 3 months and bulk aging for a year, so I topped off a 5 gallon carboy to 1/2" from the bung and put the remainder in a wine bottle with a winesaver suction cap for the purpose of topping off later, the rest went down the drain It wasn't much, but it's still a shame.
Am I missing something? Am I doing it right? I don't want to leave this wine with so much air in the vessel for bulk aging, or even the 28 days it says to clear. Did I screw up something earlier that left me with too much wine at this point? How would you interpret these instructions?
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