Procedural wine making question

J187 · 01-26-2012, 02:42 PM

I'm a beer brewer who wants to make an occasional batch of red wine. I plan to use most of my existing beer equip. I already want to buy a second fermentation vessel for making more beer. I want to make my foray into wine the cheapest and easiest possible since It's probably not something I'll do that much. Is this an ok plan?

I am thinking I'll buy a glass carboy for my second fermeneter. When I do make wine in my fermentation bucket, I'll rack it into the carboy for initial fermentation to free up my beer bucket. Then, each time I need to rack the wine to stir in something new, I'll rack it to either my bottling bucket or fermentation bucket (whichever is free at the moment), clean and sanitize the carboy and rack it right back for the addition. This way, all I tie up is the one glass carboy for the month and a half I make the wine, then I can go back to using the carboy for additional batches of beer. I promise to be ultra careful when racking the wine back and forth. Thoughts? Anything I haven't thought of that will foil my plan?

PS - it's not just the money I don't want to spend buying two additional carboys, but also, my storage space is somewhat limited and already the equipment I have is starting to overtake the storage area I have.

Dicky · 01-26-2012, 03:42 PM

Well, it will introduce the wine to a lot of air which could risk it going baaaaad.

But that said...I've done the same thing and it's turned out ok.

Dicky.

DoctorCAD · 01-26-2012, 04:02 PM

I'd leave it in the bucket for around 7 to 10 days and then rack to the carboy. Keeps your chances of overflowing the carboy down. Wine should be done with primary fermentation by then.

Racking to a bucket to do the work won't hurt if you sulfite it.

Biggest thing is NO airspace during secondary fermentation of the wine, meaning if you buy a 6 gallon carboy, make 6 gallons of wine, not 5.5 or 5 or 3..

NO HEADSPACE ALLOWED!!!!!

**Brewkowski** · 01-26-2012, 04:17 PM

Depending on if you keg carb or not, having a source of CO2 around can help if your batches end up smaller than your carboy. I normally top off any headspace with a few squirts of CO2, until I see my airlock pushing out air and then I feel more comfortable with a gal or so of headspace. Otherwise, if you have brew equipment you have all the wine equipment you need, except bottling stuff. One of the good things with wine is you can always pick up some stuff here and there since it's a longer process.

J187 · 01-26-2012, 05:38 PM

Thanks for the replies...

1. I have a very large turkey baster. Would it be beneficial to carefully draw some of the must (that's what wine wort is called, right?) and delicately put it in the bucket first, then make sure to keep the siphon hose lower than that level to MINIMIZE the oxygenation?

2. I plan to only make wine from kits, these are usually 6 gallons that will allow me to minimize my airspace in the carboy, yes?

3. A friend who makes wine and also cautioned me about headspace told me I could pour a little bit of the cheap box wine from the liquor store into the carboy to top the level off to clear out headspace if necessary. Right.

DoctorCAD · 01-26-2012, 06:47 PM

1. That will work, but if you add a campden tablet or two to the bucket, the SO2 will keep the 02 away. In 5 years of winemaking, I have never had a batch get "oxidized" due to working with it. It only takes a few minutes to do any racking or mixing and it goes back under airlock.

2. Perfect, kits are 6 gallons for a reason.

3. Topping off with a like wine is a normal procedure.

As far as blowing CO2 into the carboy, it WILL mix with air. Physics says so, all gasses will mix eventually, so the CO2 that you added will become diluted over time. Top off, it never fails.