A few more questions:
1.) When you say "top up," you mean with water right?
2.) What should I use to "cover loosely."
3.) When you say "cover," you mean with the plastic lid that comes with the fermenting bucket?
4.)What do you mean by stir daily? Three times a day?
5.) How will this wine turn out? I'd like it to be a nice balance, maybe a tad on the sweet side, but not too much! but rather have it sweet than way way dry.
Sorry for all the detailed questions. I'm excited for my first batch of wine and of course want to get it right. Thanks Yooper!
1. Yes, or with a light wine. At first, water is fine as it's sort of "built into" the recipe if you start with an OG of 1.095 or so.
2. Keep fruitflies out! A towel will work, but if you have a ton of fruitflies, you may need a "real" cover with an airlock. My preference is a clean towel, though.
3. Well, whatever you need to cover it. You won't need to airlock until secondary. But definitely keep out fruitflies (see #2). That may require a cover and airlock if you've got a ton of fruitflies.
4. Sometimes fruit will float and make a "cap" ontop of the must. You want to submerge that, to keep it from drying out, and you want to encourage oxygen. Once or twice a day is probably sufficient, but more wont' hurt.
5. It will be dry. HOWEVER, once it's done and no longer dropping any lees at all after 60 days, you can stabilize (I can tell you how) and sweeten as desired. It's easy!
I would encourage you to make at least a 1.5 gallon sized batch from the beginning. That's because you'll have racking losses each time, and I like topping up with leftover wine. You can even freeze some must when you rack to secondary, and use that for topping up. I usually fill a wine bottle (a small stopper, I think #3 or #4, but check with your LHBS fits a wine bottle) or a growler (#6 stopper) with the "extra" must.
If you start with an OG of 1.090, it should go to .990 (bone dry) for an ABV of 13%. That's why I said it's ok to top up with water in later rackings. I really like to end up with about 11-12% ABV for a fruit wine. You need about 10% or so for preservative qualities. I like about 12% for a nice drinkable table wine in about 8-12 months.
One other thing I forgot- to guestimate the amount of So2 in your wine, you can generally use one campden tablet (crushed and dissolved) in every other racking, as both an antioxidant and as a preservative. The sulfite will help prevent oxidation in the several rackings you'll probably need to do. I like to rack every 60 days or whenever there is 1/4" of lees. If after 45 days, there are few lees, I won't rack of course. Once the wine is clear, and dropping few lees, you can skip racking. But you don't want to bottle until the wine is dropping NO lees.
Another thing that can come later is if the wine is slow to clear, you can stick it in the fridge for 48 hours, and it might clear in a flash! Or you can use clarifiers, but that's not my preference because some of my friends are vegetarians and most clarifiers use animal products.