Plum wine sediment

[Bcrouse]

I am on my first try with wine making. I racked into the secondary yesterday. I did not use any measuring tools so I don’t know at what stage of fermenting my ‘must’(?) was in the primary fermentor. I am worried I may have racked too early and that I did a poor job. I realize now that the liquid had not settled after moving my fermenter before I began the siphon. There is a lot of sediment in my secondary. There was less head space, but it foamed into the airlock and I removed a small amount from the one gallon demijohn. I had a sterilized airlock and bung in hand which I quickly put onto the secondary after removing the one which had been foamed into. Is this an indication I racked too early? And should I now re-rack since the amount of sediment seems to be so large? Thank you for any help.

C27196AA-208B-4B04-93EB-EE0E10BD8157

• Bcrouse
• Sep 17, 2019

 

[sour_grapes]

There is no problem in transferring a decent amount of sediment when you rack. It will contain lots of yeast that will help you finish the fermentation. Yes, when you rack, it should be at a point where the initial vigorous fermentation has died down. I would advise racking at SG = 1.005 or so or lower. Of course, at this point, there will still be a lot of CO2 dissolved in the must, so you must be careful not to induce a "wine volcano."