re-racking wine

[chrissiemens4]

Some of the instructions say that after clearing and stabilizing, that there is an optional re-rack into a clean carboy. my question is, is there any benefit to doing this? what would be the reasoning behind it? just to lose more sediment before bottling?

 

[jtstar]

How many times have you racked your wine now, you will probably still be able to get some sediment every time you racked unless you filter your wine after clearing and stabilizing. Right before you bottle I have seen on this forum that if you splash rack it will help get the co2 out of the wine if you don't have a vacuum pump to do it.

 

[chrissiemens4]

i typically only rack from the primary to carboy for second fermentation, then again to carboy for clearing/degassing, then one last time before filtering as i try to avoid ALL sediment the last time so less enters my filter. and i guess my filter pours into a carboy again before i bottle it by hand. so all in all, moves 5 times. so is there a point to doing another one after the clearing/degassing?

 

[jtstar]

So here it is you basically answered your own question good job

 

[Dugger]

The optional racking is just to get the wine off the sediment (lees). If you are filtering and do not want a lot of sediment when you do this, then you should do the optional rack. If you plan on leaving the wine sit for awhile before filtering/bottling, then you should do the optional rack.

 

[robie]

Dugger has it right. You don't want the wine to set on the sediment too long.

If you are bulk aging, you will want to rack off the sediment periodically. If you are bottling right away (which I would never do except for a summer wine), it is a good idea to rack off all the sediment into a clean container; then bottle from there. This way you don't risk getting sediment in your bottles and it helps get rid of that last little bit of CO2 that might still be lingering.

After bulk aging various lengths of time, when I bottle, I rack into a fermentor bucket and bottle from there. (I do this so I can utilize the spicket on the bucket. I use a bottling wand, but I like to slow down the flow just before the bottle is full, so I don't get all the overflow. For me, bottling seems to always be a messy job.)

 

[sly22guy]

As mentioned above you never want to bottle from a carboy that has sediment in it.

 

[chrissiemens4]

i always rack away from sediment same day prior to filter, so yes i understand you do not want sediment when your bottling.

I was just more curious as to if there are benefits to doing any racking in between the clearing racking and final bottling transfer. Thanks dugger and robie for the clarification!