Misc. questions

[yaeyama]

Hi, a couple of days ago I racked my first batch (a peach must) from primary to secondary. I did not add sulphite when doing so, but I rinsed my carboy, plastic tubing, etc. out with sulphite and then rinsed with water afterward. The carboy is now sitting in a room with the air conditioner set to 18 C. I still have some lingering questions...

1) Should I invest in a carboy container? The drapes are drawn in my "wine room" and although the light is minimal, is it better to allow fermentation to take place in a dark environment?

2) I lost gravity a couple of times when syphoning. Therefore, there are probably more than a few "ppm" of my saliva in the wine. ;-) Since I didn't sulphite, will this likely lead to contamination? For what it's worth, the airlock is bubbling like crazy, and the 6 gallons of wine look like they have their own weather system (it's amazing how much motion is going on inside)! I take it the yeast, alcohol, and CO2 cap will prevent bacteria from growing?

3) When I do a racking and rinse my equipment with my sulphite solution, do I need to rinse with water after, or just leave as-is? I don't want to introduce too much sulphite, affecting taste and shutting down fermentation too prematurely. However, not enough sulphite may lead to contamination problems. :-/

Thanks in advance for your advice.

P.S. The few mouthfuls of wine I got when syphoning were a bit sour and quite sparkling, but not that unpleasant. The smell off the primary was very peachy, with a definite alcohol smell. There was also a tone of .. not to be disgusting but, do you remember the last time you had way too much to drink and threw up? That acidic, alcoholic smell was also present. I assume this is normal? ross:

 

[jdymen]

Hi, a couple of days ago I racked my first batch (a peach must) from primary to secondary. I did not add sulphite when doing so, but I rinsed my carboy, plastic tubing, etc. out with sulphite and then rinsed with water afterward. The carboy is now sitting in a room with the air conditioner set to 18 C. I still have some lingering questions...

1) Should I invest in a carboy container? The drapes are drawn in my "wine room" and although the light is minimal, is it better to allow fermentation to take place in a dark environment?

2) I lost gravity a couple of times when syphoning. Therefore, there are probably more than a few "ppm" of my saliva in the wine. ;-) Since I didn't sulphite, will this likely lead to contamination? For what it's worth, the airlock is bubbling like crazy, and the 6 gallons of wine look like they have their own weather system (it's amazing how much motion is going on inside)! I take it the yeast, alcohol, and CO2 cap will prevent bacteria from growing?

3) When I do a racking and rinse my equipment with my sulphite solution, do I need to rinse with water after, or just leave as-is? I don't want to introduce too much sulphite, affecting taste and shutting down fermentation too prematurely. However, not enough sulphite may lead to contamination problems. :-/

Thanks in advance for your advice.

P.S. The few mouthfuls of wine I got when syphoning were a bit sour and quite sparkling, but not that unpleasant. The smell off the primary was very peachy, with a definite alcohol smell. There was also a tone of .. not to be disgusting but, do you remember the last time you had way too much to drink and threw up? That acidic, alcoholic smell was also present. I assume this is normal? ross:

Dear Yaeyama:

Light wont affect your fermentation, dont worry about that. Fermentation is ony done in lack of oxygen (by definition), not light.

Secondary fermentation (Malo-Lactic fermentation) is done to reduce the acidity of wines (one of the reasons). This fermentation is done by Lactic Bacterias called Oenococcus Oenii, very sensible to SO2, and they eat Malic acid and produce Lactic Acid that is less acid than the first one.

Saliva wont contaminate your wine, most of the microorganisms that live on your saliva are not able to live at the pH, acidity, and alcohol level of the wine.

Airlock its just a simple way yo let the CO2 out and dont let the oxigen in. In the precense of oxygen the acetic bacterias eat alcohol and produce acetic acid (vineagar)

When you use your equipment, always use sulphite solution and then rinse with water to clean, specially when alcoholic fermentation ended and you want to do ML fermentation after.

hope this was usefoul, when you finish your peach wine tell me your results please

jose

 

[CBBaron]

One future solution to your saliva problem is to get an auto siphon. These are wonderful devices that make siphoning much easier.
All types of brewing take patience, wine more so than beer but for best results beer also takes considerable patience. I have been brewing beer for a short while and I'm just starting to try my hand at wine.

Craig