Stirring White Wine

[jkim888]

Hello -

I'm new to wine making and had a question about the stirring frequency. This is my first white grape PAIL, a Gewurz from Brehm Vinyards. I have a decent experience with red varietals.

The gewurz is about 1.012 gravity today and should be another 7-10 days to ferment dry at around 55f.

Since the beginning it has been in a glass carboy with an airlock, and only opened to swirl and let some oxygen in. So far i've been swirling the glass carboy daily for about 4 weeks now. As the wine is approaching the lower end of fermentation I wonder how often I should stir without losing essential aromatics? I will likely have to swirl it again over the course of the week because there is about a 1" sediment that falls out pretty quickly. I dont plan on racking into a secondary vessel, but just leave it there until it's dry, then rack and sulfited.

Should I just keep the airlock on and swirl it enough so that the sediment on the bottom is released? Just worried that I may have lost some aromatics/induced oxidization(although tastes fine) by swirling a bit too vigorously daily near the end of fermentation.

 

[Jim Welch]

I wouldn't swirl or stir any more.
At 1.012 I'd rack to another carboy after letting it settle for a day or two.
For future reference, yeast only need O2 to reproduce and once the alcohol hit 10% ABV they do not reproduce any more and no more O2 is needed. Not sure what your original gravity was but if it was a typical white wine OG you are past 10% ABV.
Do you plan to bottle directly from this primary fermenter? If so, how will you keep the sediment out of the bottles?

 

[winemaker81]

I agree -- at this point you don't need to do anything. Fermenting at 55 F could require more time -- I'd leave it for 14 days, then check SG. It won't hurt the wine to give it a few extra days.

A common method for whites is to ferment in an open bucket (stirring at least once daily) down to 1.020, then rack into a carboy to finish. I recall at least one person racks at 1.050.

 

[Rice_Guy]

There are several directions (styles) you can go;
* oxygen is a nutrient in growing yeast cells. If your goal is healthy yeast then stirring till 1/3 sugar ~1055 will help prevent H2S production/ off odors. Cell reproduction stops after this point.
* sur lie, the purpose is to prevent oxidation, in doing this fine lees are mixed back in every day. (for months)
https://www.winemakingtalk.com/threads/fine-lees-in-bulk-aging.77491/#post-862822* orange wine is a traditional way to reduce oxidation by letting the wine on skins and periodically mixing. (for a year or so)

My style is to do spaced organic nitrogen addition with some oxygen addition till 1/3 sugar reduction and then rack to a carboy with airlock, >> keep anaerobic. This lets me be a bit lazy, and is close to the recipe mom would do.
What style do you want? be aware oxidation is your enemy and traditional styles work to minimize oxidation. ,,,, and welcome to WMT. ,,, there are threads about the styles in the search function.