Wine - Secondary Fermentation

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Benny27

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Winnipeg, Manitoba
I just finished step 1, Primary Fermentation. When i was siphoning the wine into the secondary fermentor i noticed that either i put in too much water in the first step or my carboy is not 23 L. Therfore at this point i could not get all the wine from the pail into one carboy. What should i do? Should i discard the excess?

Also my hyrometer reading was already under 1.000 (about .996) after only 1 week in the primary fermentor. Is the wine still going to be okay?

Thanks
 
What I often do is transfer the "leftover" into a separate smaller (1/2 gallon, quart, etc..) container, & loosen the lid a bit. when fermentation has slowed (in your case it sounds like it has already, this is ok), put it in the refrigerator (perhaps seal the lid the next day, as the temp will hamper fermentation) & use to top off at first racking instead of using water/marbles/etc...
Your low SG reading is fine, just means it fermented a bit faster.
Your wine will be fine!!
 
I have several stoppers in different sizes. They're cheap, and fit wine bottles and/or 22 ounce beer bottles. You can stick an airlock in them, and set them alongside the carboy. Whenever you rack, you can use the excess to top up your carboy. I often purposefully make a little more must, just for topping up. Any sanitized bottle will work, but I find that wine bottles are really a nice size for this.
 
"leftover" beverage is why i get 'faced on bottling/racking day! by the time I'm done I'm so spun that I'm amazed I remember to sanitize my equipment before putting it away.
:drunk::cross::tank::rockin:
 
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