Racking to secondary, to squeeze or not to squeeze???

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doctorgonzo79

doctorgonzo79

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Our muscidine wine is ready to transfer to a carboy as gravity has dropped from 1.110 to 1.010 in five days.

I am toying with the idea of putting the grain bag full of skins and bits in my mash tun and pressing the heck out of it to get the most yield. The only available carboy is 6 gallons and i have 5 gallons of must including the bag o bits.

is this advisable or should i top up with some more grape juice and add dissolved sugar to match gravity with the current reading?
 
doctorgonzo79 said:
Our muscidine wine is ready to transfer to a carboy as gravity has dropped from 1.110 to 1.010 in five days.

I am toying with the idea of putting the grain bag full of skins and bits in my mash tun and pressing the heck out of it to get the most yield. The only available carboy is 6 gallons and i have 5 gallons of must including the bag o bits.

is this advisable or should i top up with some more grape juice and add dissolved sugar to match gravity with the current reading?
Click to expand...

You should have as little head space as possible in your secondary.

Either:
1. Get a 5 gallon carboy
2. Top off with juice
3. Top off with a similar wine

Adding a gallon of water or simple syrup is too much.....
 
It won't help as much with the headspace issue, but I would squeeze your bag... Err, I would advise you to squeeze your own bag... But only with clean hands and gently so it doesn't pop and make a big mess. There will be a lot of flavor in that bag.
 
I wouldn't put it in my MLT- that would be a place where it would be easy to pick up a lacto bug. Just squeeze into a sanitized container with sanitized hands.

and like was mentioned, you need a 5 gallon carboy for a 5 gallon batch, so either top up with a commercial wine or get a smaller carboy right away!
 
is a commercial wine necessary?
i was planning on using grape juice and adding invert syrup to make the gallon or so of juice match the original o.g and continue under the airlock. I did not intend on adding a gallon of sugar syrup just enough to get the top up juice to ferment out dry.
 
doctorgonzo79 said:
is a commercial wine necessary?
i was planning on using grape juice and adding invert syrup to make the gallon or so of juice match the original o.g and continue under the airlock. I did not intend on adding a gallon of sugar syrup just enough to get the top up juice to ferment out dry.
Click to expand...

Juice will work, beware if you want a dry wine, it may end up on the sweet side.
 

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