cold crash?

Ok so I am new at wine. I have 12 gallons of black berry wine, yeah I picked 50 pounds of black berries. I have done primary moved to secondary, and transfered to another carboy last night. It is two months old right now. I know it needs to age. I am planning on adding some oak cubes to it as well. But can I cold crash the wine at 37 degrees, like a beer to get it to clear faster?

Im no expert but i have never crashed any wine, but i really didnt need to. they all have come crystal clear. wait till fermentation is done or down to where you want sorbate and transfer to clean carboy. it should clear all on its own.

BTW, props on picking 50# of blackberries. I picked 5#and thought i would never get enough but made my best gallon of wine to date.

Sure, you can do that. Usually wine goes through "cold stabilization", but it's very similar to the way you do beer. You'll want to wait at least 4-6 months, until the wine is ready for cold stabilization. It really helps keep "stuff" out of the bottles, and encourages excess acid to precipitate out as well as other things like protein and yeast that can cause a hazy wine. It's more common in wines with excess tartaric acid (grape wines). Excess tartaric acid forms wine crystal and although they don't harm the wine, most of us winemakers like them to form in the carboy so the wine can be racked off of those crystals and not in the bottle.

Yooper thanks! This wine thing takes forever!!! And to think I am only two months into this. When should I add some oak cubes?

I've gotten tartaric acid crystals from kit wine before. Good to know some cold conditioning can help get rid of them!

Jud said:

Yooper thanks! This wine thing takes forever!!! And to think I am only two months into this. When should I add some oak cubes?

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You can oak whenever you like- but I would suggest doing it when the wine stops throwing lees. When I oak my blackberry, I usually do it about the third racking I believe. I rack off of the light dusting of lees after about 60 days between rackings and then onto the oak. Now, oak cubes can impart oakiness FAST- so take a very small taste every 10 days or so. When it's very slightly over oaked, you can rack off of the oak.

Justibone said:

I've gotten tartaric acid crystals from kit wine before. Good to know some cold conditioning can help get rid of them!

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Yeah, I've gotten crystals (called wine diamonds) from several kit wines as well as some non-grape wines before. Even with cold stabilization, I'll still get a few wine diamonds in the bottle on occasion.