wine kit fail?

Yakima 728
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Picobrew

Picobrew

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I'm doing a wineexpert kit, and was about to bottle today, but then I think I messed it up! Help me out here.

Instead of just transferring the nice clear wine to my bottling bucket, for some reason I thought I had to degass it, so I whipped it into a frenzy with the wine whip. Now it is cloudy as hell and I don't think I should bottle it. I rented the floor corker for 3 days, and I doubt it will be clear that quickly. What should I do?
 
Picobrew said:
I'm doing a wineexpert kit, and was about to bottle today, but then I think I messed it up! Help me out here.

Instead of just transferring the nice clear wine to my bottling bucket, for some reason I thought I had to degass it, so I whipped it into a frenzy with the wine whip. Now it is cloudy as hell and I don't think I should bottle it. I rented the floor corker for 3 days, and I doubt it will be clear that quickly. What should I do?
Click to expand...

Well, if you whipped it up, it'll take a while to clear again. Maybe in three days, though, especially if you can get the carboy cold. It'll clear pretty fast if you can cold crash it overnight.

Hopefully you didn't aerate it. Do you have any sulfite/campden? If you do, that will help prevent oxidation.
 
I highly dought it will clear in that time frame and wouldnt even if it looked clear cause most likely you will get a good dusting in the bottles if you do. This is the reason you should always rack to a clean carboy or bottling bucket before bottling. You must have had a fine dusting on the bottom of your carboy that you stirred up again and this will probably take a week or more to settle in and finisf dropping all that very fine stuff again. Do you have a filter?
 
Thanks for the tips guys.

1. I am OK with waiting a week (or more), but do you think it will be fine after that point?

2. I probably did aerate it! I don't know what the hell I was thinking, but I got the steps mixed up. Anyway, it isn't completely topped up (to the lip of the better bottle) anymore. Should I top it up AND add some potassium to prevent oxidation? How much should I add?

I was planning to rack to a bottling bucket and then bottle from there, I just screwed it up by whipping it up like a crazy fool first.

Wade: I don't have a filter. Were you implying that it will NEVER clear now? I am OK with sediment in the bottles - this is my first wine kit. I just don't want to ruin the whole batch.
 
I was just implying that if it was only a little bit of dusting on the bottom that you whipped up that a filter could clear it up but if it was all the sediment plus the fining agent then let her settle as youd just plug up the filter and get into more trouble. If it is a 6 gallon batch and you have only added what came with the kit then either 6 campden tablets or 1/4 tsp of potassium metabisulfite is what you want to add to it but if yoyu dont plan on having these bottles around to long then you probably dont have to bother. What kit is this anyway. This wine will settle back out and probably pretty quick. What exactly did you stir up anyway, was it all the sediment and all the fining agent or was it just a dusting from racking it after all the clearing was done?
 
Wade E said:
I was just implying that if it was only a little bit of dusting on the bottom that you whipped up that a filter could clear it up but if it was all the sediment plus the fining agent then let her settle as youd just plug up the filter and get into more trouble. If it is a 6 gallon batch and you have only added what came with the kit then either 6 campden tablets or 1/4 tsp of potassium metabisulfite is what you want to add to it but if yoyu dont plan on having these bottles around to long then you probably dont have to bother. What kit is this anyway. This wine will settle back out and probably pretty quick. What exactly did you stir up anyway, was it all the sediment and all the fining agent or was it just a dusting from racking it after all the clearing was done?
Click to expand...

This is the third carboy .. So I think this is a racking after the fining agent/clearing was done. After whipping it up and letting it settle a bit, there was a lot of floating material (from the dusting?) in the carboy. It sort of settled to the lower third of the carboy and is settling further now. I think we are going to age this wine for only 6m-12m, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. 1/4tsp of potas sounds pretty easy to do. Do I need to dilute it first or just sprinkle it in? I have a bit of headroom in the carboy so I could add water.
 
On the cold crash note - How cold can I crash for and how long with wine? Is there any downside to low temps pre-bottling at this stage? If not, I'll just let this sit in a tub with icewater for a couple days.

Oh and this is the WinExpert Zinfandel/Shiraz kit. We got another kit today, this one from the Estate series, the Lodi Old Vines Zinfandel
 
I would not add water, I would get a bottle of commercial if its at all possible or if you have a C02 set up you can displace the 02 with the C02 and be fine. I would extract just a little wine and dissolve the k-meta in that and then add it back. What kit is this?
 
If you have campden tablets, crush 6 of them and dissolve in warm water and add. If you have the potassium sulfite powder, then dissolve the 1/4 tsp in a little water or some of the wine, stir well and add it. Top up now, too.

It should be just fine. It'll just need some time to settle a bit. Don't worry.

You don't have to cold crash- I just suggested it if you were in a hurry to clear it up. Since you're not, just wait about 5 days and see if it's clearing up. It should be all settled by then.
 
Thanks Wade! We'll top it up with a bit of commercial Zinfandel - I'll just mix the k-meta into that I guess. I edited my post above - it's the WinExpert Zinfandel/Shiraz kit.
 

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