wine lees / sediment help help

[chrisber]

today i took the wine from the primary fermenter and put it into the carboy. when i was doing this, I used the siphon. the sipoon stopped and I had to get into the wine. Some of the sediment or lees went into the carboy. is this going to be a problem?

i have to leave it in the carboy for 14 days and then i am going to bottle it. i will filter the wine before i bottle it.

will the lees that went into the carboy cause a problem.

 

[peagen]

Lees

I use a 5 gallon bucket with a spigot at the bottom. I siphon the wine from the glass carboy into the bucket, of course when I get down to the sedement I stop, you dont get every drop but that's ok. Then just wait two or three days for what ever sedement is left to settle, then all you have to do is fill the bottles from the spigot. The sedement is under the opening of the spigot so all you get is clear wine.

 

[Wade E]

You shouldnt leave it in a primary bucket for days, thats way too much headspace. You just need to rack 1 more time. The thing with wine is patience! When I bottle, there is no sediment in my carboys! Just keep racking until there is nothing on the bottom!

 

[chrisber]

instructions.

i bought the kit and it said to leave it in the primary for 14 days.

then today to rack it to the carboy and top the carboy with water, which i did.. the instructions said not to disturb the sediment when racking it to the carboy. however some sediment got in my carboy.

my questions is do i have to re rack the wine? or can i leave it in the carboy with the sediment.

will the sediment in the carboy do anything to the wine????????? will it harm it?????

when i bottle the wine, i have a filter and I will be filtering it.

 

[Wade E]

It will not harm it and you will have lots more sediment soon anyway. They just say this because some manufacturers use a different fining agent that requires that all less be transferred over.

 

[Conquistadude]

I think of it this way...it a by-product of fermentation, and pulps left over from the fruit, and if sediment was in it in the first place, it didn't hurt it then, hows it going to harm it now. You don't want to drink it, and you don't want it in your bottle at the end. it also looks nicer. Granted you still don't want to go too long lol

 

[Wade E]

Actually if left on the lees for too long they will go bad and give off an off flavor and smell so there is a cut off point. Lees from primary are the worst.

 

[chrisber]

lees

so leaving the lees in the carboy for two weeks wont cause a problem. then when I bottle, I am going to filter the wine first and then bottle. so that should rid of the lees?

 

[Wade E]

Leaving the lees in the carboy for 2 weeks is good as it will give the lees time to compact so that you dont disturb them as easy. Another trick is to tilt the carboy while iy is settling out so that most is on 1 side and you can rack off the other side with much less sediment transfer. When filtering a wine that has lees in it, make sure to keep the racking cane off the lees as long as possiible so as not to clog the filter.

 

[Pat Parks]

My husband had a nifty little device from his beermaking equipment that fit on the end of the siphoning wand, seems to have just kept it a little above the lees without tilting or moving it around at all. The siphon stopped pulling before any sediment came up, and we still got 29 bottles; is that about right? We didn't have much liquid waste; I put it all in my compost pile anyway, so it'll just help the hops (and whatever else gets a dose) get bigger! What goes around ...

 

[Wade E]

29 bottles is normal so you did good!