So far so good. I think.

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faxdoctor

Junior
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I've been coming onto winemaking talk for a couple weeks or so and I gotta say there are some real wine scientists here. Great info comes from great questions so I have to applaud the newbies (like me) who aren't afraid to ask questions. My hat's off to ya'll.
My batches come from kit (Winexpert) and I am now in the secondary phase. (converted to carboy. stabilizing/degassing) I converted mine over to this phase a little earlier than the 'days of' directions read because my SG was at .994. I was encouraged by the fact my juice appears to be turning into wine.
I've added the Chitosan and the carboys are sitting there looking at me waiting for 'what's next'. My instructions read to let it sit for 5 days and give the carboy a twist to looses any sediment stuck to the walls. Also, top-up the carboys if desired using a similar type of wine.
My questions:
It looks like a half bottle of each type of wine would fill the carboys for topping. Is this necessary? Reading further, I will rack into another carboy for polishing/aging. Is this a good time to filter?
Thanks to ya'll,
 
When you are actively out gassing CO2 you don’t have to be precise about topping off.
At .994 it was appropriate to move the wine, , , note it is wine now with alcohol (which will tend to oxidize farther) and yeast floating and a lot of CO2

Welcome to the forum
 
The reason you are waiting the 5 days is to let the sediment fall out, however if it is not properly degassed the sediment will have a tendency to stay suspended. It appears you may be interested in letting it age in the carboy which I commend you for being that it appears to be your first wines. Depending on how long you intend to let it age will be the determining factor on whether to top up or not. If you're talking more than a couple week, and that's pushing it, I would recommend topping it up. As far as filtering goes I would not recommend filtering until just before bottling. With all the sediment still floating around your filters will get clogged pretty quickly.

Hope it helps, good luck and welcome.
 
Not someone who works a lot with kits but I have noticed that the one or two kits I have used suggest that topping up is not necessary and they don't asterisk that statement by stating that that only applies if you intend to use their short bulk aging time. Perhaps because their concern is that many novice wine makers may top up with water and so may dilute the flavors to the detriment of the final product.
 

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