Racking Question - newbie

[Reilly]

I did my first rack yesterday for my WE Austrailian Chardonnay. I was at 1.000 SG and everything went well. Today I have a nice layer of bubbles on the must in the 6 gallon glass carboy. The instructions say not to complete a
2nd rack as the stabilising and fining agents need the sediment to help clear the wine.

Couple issues : 1st, I pulled some oak shavings over from the primary when I racked. 2nd, I have a lot of room and really do not want to top with H2O after degassing and putting the other packs.

Possible solution - I have a 5 gallon glass carboy available to use. I was thinking about racking again (in 2-4 days) which would allow fermentation to continue and pull off the remaining oak pieces. It would have another 4-5 days to produce enough sediment for the stabilising and clearing step.

Thoughts? Comments??

 

[kiminecz]

Buy a bottle of Chardonnay at the grocery store and top it off with that.

 

[1tonmama]

On your first issue - I follow the school of thought that the first time you "rack" from primary to a secondary is in fact a transfer rather than a rack (as preached by Jack Keller). Racking is done remove as much sediment from the wine as possible. The first transfer from primary to secondary is done to move the wine to more suitable vessel to help protect it as the the fermentation slows down and the must becomes more susceptible to oxygen. Transfer of some (albeit not all) of the sediment is expected at this time as much of active yeasts are also in the sediment. But long story short, I think you are okay with having some of the oak shavings transferred into your secondary. I would recommend leaving the must to ferment without racking so early in the process.

How much excess headroom are we talking here? Kit wines typically leave ~2L of headroom which eventually need to be topped off. If you don't want to add water, you can try adding a similar wine as kiminecz suggested. Making a 5 gal batch out of 6 gal kit is not recommended as it can throw off the chemistry of the engineered kit but I know some people do try it and do it very well so it's your call.

One thing I'd note, you will eventually want to top off even if you go to a 5 gal carboy. Once the stabilization and clearing is done, you will have ~1" or more of sediment which you will need to rack off of. If you clear from 5 gal carboy, that means you'll be left with even less wine once you rack off of the lees. Something to think about.

 

[DaveL]

If you do rack to a 5 then save the excess in another container with some type of airlock to top off eith when needed