Wasted Juice

[James]

I am "fixin" to rack my wine for the third and last time as per kit instructions. In my quest to minimize the amount of water/wine I top up with, I would like to rack all the wine I can with my cane but the last part I would like to pour, lees and all,in a smaller bucket with a filter bag and squeeze all the juice I can out of it.


1. Is this appropriate behavior for the last racking?


2. On a related note, can you clean filter bags good enough to reuse them?


Also, I enjoyed the online wine tasteng lessons whoever was nice enough to post them.


James

 

[Cracked Cork]

James, the yeast are what is in the lees now and they are so small they
will fit thru your bag and when you put the juice back in the carboy
you will be exactly where you were before you racked. Some people
suggest topping off with a similar wine. If you dont have that
sometimes I just dilute some everclear to the same alcohol level as the
wine I am making and use that to top off with.



Crackedcork

 

[James]

Thanks CC. I have to admit that I do not know what Everclear is and, sadly, I am not sure how or when to determine the alcohol content of the wine I have made. I follow the directions of the kit I am making and so far the wine I have made is good but, I'm still working on the general knowledge part.


I appreciate the advice.


James

 

[Bill B]

James,filtering the lees is a time consuming and labor intensive process., and I don"t believe you will get the results you are looking for. As far as reusing the filter bags this is another labor intensive process. Im not saying that it can"t be done but Its better to throw them away and if price is a factor, try using knee high nylons next time. They are cheep. Use once and throw away. There are many options for topping up such as Like wine, marbles are another. I use Wine preserver an inert gas to cap the wine. Also Most wine kits are designed so a certain % of H2O can be added at the end for topping up with good results. (pr Tim Vandergrift)
<DIV SuperAdBlocker_DIV_Elements="0" SuperAdBlocker_OnMove_Hooked="0" SuperAdBlocker__Hooked="0" SuperAdBlocker_DIV_FirstLook="0">Bill

 

[Wade E]

James, in case you are wondering who Tim Vandergrift is, He is the
representive for Winexpert wine kits. As far as the filters, are you
talking about the mesh bags, if so, I clean them up by turning them
inside out and washing them really good with hot water, soak them in
k-meta after washing and again before reusing them. Others throw them
in the washing machine.

 

[jojo]

James - I have had good results tipping the carboy 45 degrees and leaving there for a week before racking. The less settle to one side of the bottom of the carboy and you simply place the cane on the opposite side, placing the carboy level to rack. I have reused mesh bags with good results - hot water and soap then the washing machine and K-Meta. I openly support bulk aging kits up to one year, even though the instructions don't say so. The results are worth the wait.

 

[Cracked Cork]

James, do you have hydrometer readings?

Crackedcork

 

[rshosted]

James,
I am similar to you, and prefer to not add anything to a finished wine; I also like to get as much as possible. I would suggest tipping as mentioned earlier. As for extra head space, go get some glass marbles and sanitize them. You can use them to ofset the airspace in your carboy. Plus when you go to bottle usually the 'really' small lees falls down to the bottom of the marbles preventing you from sucking them up during bottling.

 

[James]

CC I do take my hydrometer readings as per kit instructions. Kit instructions say a stable SG of approx. .996 after secondary fermentation. I don't know how this translates to percent alcohol.


rshosted - I picked up on the marble thing laxt week. I think I will try that on this batch. I also will tilt my carboy on my next batch and see how that works. I've ordered 4 of the 5 LE kits for next year so I want to have my routine down. As you know, kitinstructions tell you to bottle after a few weeks. I've done this with fine results but plan to age in the carboy minimum of six months from now on.


Thanks everybody - Roll Tide!


James

 

[Wade E]

As they say, good things come to those who wait.

 

[James]

WW, since you're on line, how do I determine the alcohol content of my wine? Keep it simple, I'm sampling some 10 year old Tanqueray tonight. It was 80 degrees today - gin and tonic weather!


James

 

[Cracked Cork]

James, the first number is important too, what did it start out at? Crackedcork

 

[James]

My first reading was 1.092.

 

[Joseph1]

James, there are almost as many formulas for calculating alcohol content as there are wine makers. The following is an easy onefrom an article by Tim Vandergrift:
<?amespace prefix = o ns = "urnchemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />
“To calculate potential alcohol, take the original gravity of the must and subtract the gravity of the finished wine, and multiply that number by 131. This will give you the percent alcohol by volume. For example, if you started out with a gravity reading of 1.088 and had a finishing gravity of 0.998, the difference between the two would be 0.090. Multiply that by 131 and you get 11.79 or roughly 12% alcohol by volume.”

 

[James]

Thanks Joseph, I think I've got now.


James

 

[PolishWineP]

WW, since you're on line, how do I determine the alcohol content of my wine? Keep it simple, I'm sampling some 10 year old Tanqueray tonight. It was 80 degrees today - gin and tonic weather!


James

You're killin' me! My green-eyed self is becoming very unhappy with her current location.

I want G&amp;T weather!

 

[Angell Wine]

WW, since you're on line, how do I determine the alcohol content of my wine? Keep it simple, I'm sampling some 10 year old Tanqueray tonight. It was 80 degrees today - gin and tonic weather!


James

You're killin' me! My green-eyed self is becoming very unhappy with her current location.

I want G&amp;T weather!

I was thinking the same thing back in july with 108 deg days.

 

[Wade E]

Yeh, I need to find a place thats 60* to 70* all year round with no
humidity. I dont like exteme cold or heat. Wish it could be fall all
year round.

 

[scotty]

camelot

 

[Wade E]

I don't think so!