New wine expert instructions

[mocha]

The new WE instructions have me leaving the must in the primary for 14 days before racking into secondary, anyone else rack on day 7 instead as long as sg is 1.03 or less? Seems like a long time exposed to the air with only a lid covering it.

 

[Bplewniak]

Check out the extended maceration threads. I’ve been leaving all my reds with skins in the primary for 8 weeks with only the lid. The co2 protects the wine during this period after you leave it alone after 10 days or so. I’ve been impressed with the results and it is a much easier process.

 

[Johnd]

The new WE instructions have me leaving the must in the primary for 14 days before racking into secondary, anyone else rack on day 7 instead as long as sg is 1.03 or less? Seems like a long time exposed to the air with only a lid covering it.

The reality is, whether you use the old or new instructions, they will get you to the same place. Big difference is when you go from your bucket to carboy and whether or not you transfer lees (I've done it both ways, transferring and leaving lees, and the wine cleared just fine both ways). If you have skins in the must, waiting to rack until near the end of AF will increase your extraction, removing it from the skins earlier decreases the extraction, depends upon what you want. If you have no skins, rack whenever you want, though I think 1.030 is a bit high and may yield a wine volcano / overflow.

 

[mocha]

Thank you, I guess I'm just used to the old directions I feel better now, it's a white wine no skins but I do have peaches and apricots in a muslin bag in there so I dont know if that changes anything, specific gravity 1.02 not 3 my bad, it's usually still active but I always thought more than 1 week was bad, I'm always learning on this forum

 

[RiderEh]

I'd also like to add a comment to this thread that I found the stabilizing at day 15 odd. I always wait until about 4 weeks to stabilize, let the yeast do as much as it can.