Stained airlock

Winemaking Talk - Winemaking Forum

Help Support Winemaking Talk - Winemaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Kivanc

Senior Member
Joined
Dec 17, 2007
Messages
188
Reaction score
73
I’m on the secondary fermentation of 10 liters bergamot tea wine. I just racked into secondary fermenter. The fermentation is vigorous and I just saw the airlock has become stained in color. I racked it when the hydrometer hit 1.030. It is been dripping through the airlock. So I dumped some into glass to drink to give the fermenter enough head space.

Smooth alcoholic taste of bergamot...
1737A0DC-0F65-405A-B0DC-0663E8D08FBB.jpeg
 
Last edited:
It finished at 1000. The initial reading was 1120. The ingredients are:

Bergamot tea - 400 grams
Water - 10 liters
Sugar - 2,5 kg
Molasses - 5 tsp
14% tolerance yeast317329F4-ECDD-4C49-9465-3D7150548892.jpeg
 
Last edited:
Well first of all I would suggest that perhaps you racked too early (I'd wait until it got down to at least 1.010) and secondly you have almost zero headspace and that's really risky given how much more fermentation your batch had left to do.
As long as a batch is fermenting well (Above 1.010 and some foam on the surface) I wouldn't worry about headspace in a carboy. 4-6 inches even isnt' bad. There is plenty of CO2 coming off the wine to keep oxygen pushed out.
 
Back
Top