Topping off carboy

[homesteader26]

I am wondering what to top off carboy with? My smallest container is a gallon and it has several inches of space in it. This is concord wine and am wondering if I have straight juice without added sugar can I use that? I have not put campden in or Sorbate and just did my first racking. Thanks for the help here.

 

[rhoffart]

I always top off with wine. Buy an inexpensive similar wine. As your stock grows you can use something you already made.

If you top it off with juice you will be back sweetening your wine and you will need to stabilize it. No sugar added still has the natural sugars from the fruit.

 

[homesteader26]

To stabilize a gallon carboy would I add 1 crushed campden and 1/2 tsp. Sorbate?

 

[vacuumpumpman]

I always top off with a similar wine also

 

[Turock]

DO NOT use sorbate NOW!!! This wine needs to clear out first. Bulk age it for 1 year and rack as needed. THEN just before you bottle, add sugar to sweetness and add sorbate and more meta. But if you are going to leave it dry with no sugar or it has no residual sugar, you don't need sorbate.

Add marbles to bring the level up. You always have to be concerned with using another wine that you can buy if it has sugar added for sweetness because you don't want more sugar now because you need to use sorbate and you CAN NOT sorbate cloudy wine loaded with yeast cells!!! So your best bet is marbles. You can buy them at www.morewine or USA made marbles from www.marbleking.com

 

[homesteader26]

Will be buying marbles - like not adding another wine in to the batch.

What would happen if I put a cup of cooked juice in to raise the level then added the campden and sorbate? The gallon had been tacked twice and seemed pretty clear compared to before. If it is bulk aged will it be alright? It was a partial gallon so it is the only one I toyed with .

 

[Turock]

Now don't get wrong here---BUT YOU AREN'T LISTENING TO ME!!! You can't use sorbate now. I cannot make it any clearer.

You may think it looks clear--BUT IT IS NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You HAVE to let it bulk age. Let me say again--it has to bulk age. Stop messing with it--stop looking at it. Put an airlock on it, stick it in a corner and forget you own it for at least a year. At least a year--at least a year. Only look at it to see if it needs to be racked.

Don't even think of sorbate for a year. By the way--did I say this needs to age for A YEAR????

 

[homesteader26]

So if I get this right I should wait? Lol. I promise not to mess with any more of them other than to rack them occasionally. I guess where I'm having a problem is not having them full and reading that all that air will ruin the wine - problem solved buy marbles.

So the unanswered question remains out there Turock "if" I did add campden and sorbate to one gallon what is going to happen? Will I have a wine that is cloudy but still drinkable? Will I have a gallon of vinegar or drain cleaner?

 

[Elmer]

.

So the unanswered question remains out there Turock "if" I did add campden and sorbate to one gallon what is going to happen? Will I have a wine that is cloudy but still drinkable? Will I have a gallon of vinegar or drain cleaner?

You you add campden & sorbate, you will have cloudy wine.
Drinkable is a relative term, you could drink it, but depending on the aging may not be as good as it should be.


I tend to add sorbate and K-meta (campden) at the end of fermentation. in my dry reds, I let it clear and age and never add sorbate again.

In my sweets, I wait until they age, clear. I add sugar, sorbate and start drinking!

 

[Turock]

OK--now you're asking a good and valuable question about sorbate. I already answered it, but I know it takes a while to assimilate things in your mind so I'll give you the nice, LONG answer.

Sorbate is used to keep the FEW remaining yeast cells present in a CLEAR wine from re-fermenting when sugar is added for sweetening. But if you add it to cloudy wine loaded with yeast cells, the sorbate cannot keep that many from re-fermenting. So this is why all directions on sorbate state to use it ONLY in a wine that is clear where most of the yeast cells have been racked off. So if you added sorbate and sugar now, it would not be effective and you would have a re-ferment.

Also, be sure when you do go to use it that you dissolve it in 1/4 cup or so of water. It is not dissolvable in wine, but is in water where it forms sorbic acid which IS dissolvable in wine.

All of you who are adding sorbate before bulk aging.....well, you should stop doing that. It is bad practice.

 

[Turock]

Elmer--why are you sorbating a dry wine? It is not necessary.

 

[The_Wine_Gnat]

OK--now you're asking a good and valuable question about sorbate. I already answered it, but I know it takes a while to assimilate things in your mind so I'll give you the nice, LONG answer.

Sorbate is used to keep the FEW remaining yeast cells present in a CLEAR wine from re-fermenting when sugar is added for sweetening. But if you add it to cloudy wine loaded with yeast cells, the sorbate cannot keep that many from re-fermenting. So this is why all directions on sorbate state to use it ONLY in a wine that is clear where most of the yeast cells have been racked off. So if you added sorbate and sugar now, it would not be effective and you would have a re-ferment.

Also, be sure when you do go to use it that you dissolve it in 1/4 cup or so of water. It is not dissolvable in wine, but is in water where it forms sorbic acid which IS dissolvable in wine.

All of you who are adding sorbate before bulk aging.....well, you should stop doing that. It is bad practice.

New wine maker here. I currently plan on fermenting until I reach an SG of around 1.010 or so (depends on taste). To stop fermentation, I was going to put one 5 gallon carboy into a tub on ice and let it rest for a week or so. Afterwards, rack off into another carboy, add Sorbate and SO2, then bulk age. How does this sound? I do NOT want to add sugar or an F-Pack back into my wine later. Would much rather retain the original character of the wine by stopping fermentation while it still has some residual sugar left in it.

Thoughts?

Edit: This plan is currently for a cider I'm fermenting, though if it works I want to try it out on a Riesling as well.

 

[freqflyer]

I think I messed up. I'm making a batch of dragonette. I added the sorbate directly to the carboy. Should I dissolve another does in water and add it to the carboy?

 

[homesteader26]

I was wondering that as well wine knat - if it could be done that way

 

[cmason1957]

New wine maker here. I currently plan on fermenting until I reach an SG of around 1.010 or so (depends on taste). To stop fermentation, I was going to put one 5 gallon carboy into a tub on ice and let it rest for a week or so. Afterwards, rack off into another carboy, add Sorbate and SO2, then bulk age. How does this sound? I do NOT want to add sugar or an F-Pack back into my wine later. Would much rather retain the original character of the wine by stopping fermentation while it still has some residual sugar left in it.

Thoughts?

Edit: This plan is currently for a cider I'm fermenting, though if it works I want to try it out on a Riesling as well.

Cooling your wine off will slow down the fermentation, until you warm it back up. Adding sorbate to it will stop some of the fermentation, but not all of it. If you want to try this, you will need to sterile filter your wine and hope that you really get all the yeast cells out of your wine. It is not a best practice.

Best practice is what Turock has said many times in this and other threads. Ferment dry, bulk age for about a year, racking when needed. Add sorbate, backsweeten. This will ALWAYS work.

 

[cintipam]

Cmason gave you a really good answer, but he left off WHY it is not a good practice. If you bottle, then ferm starts up again, which it will most probably do, then those bottles turn into bombs that could explode. It could happen while bulk aging, or possibly happen when you disburb the wine by attempting to open the bottle. Really really not safe. Best practice is ferment to dry, clear, rack, age in bulk THEN sorbate and sweeten if necessary. Yeast has a scary habit of going dormant, and if a yeastie or two makes it thru final racking that sorbate is the only thing that stops bottle bombs from happening.

Pam in cinti

 

[homesteader26]

Great info here - thank you all from this newb!!

 

[cintipam]

freqflyer, sorry we got sidetracked and missed responding to you. Do not put in more sorbate. Too much sorbate causes an unhappy geranium scent which can be off tasting too. Let it age, rack and age some more. Many folks do add the sorbate into the carboy and mix well. Not best practice, but next time mix with water first.

Pam in cinti

 

[freqflyer]

Thanks Pam.

 

[cmason1957]

freqflyer, sorry we got sidetracked and missed responding to you. Do not put in more sorbate. Too much sorbate causes an unhappy geranium scent which can be off tasting too. Let it age, rack and age some more. Many folks do add the sorbate into the carboy and mix well. Not best practice, but next time mix with water first.

Pam in cinti

Actually too much sorbate gives a bubble gum taste, not geranium smell.

The smell comes from sorbate in the presence of malolactic fermentation.