Bottling Advice

[NCGrayson]

Thank you all in advance for any help you may provide....I know variations of this topic have been discussed.

I started a WineExpert Select Italian Montepulciano last year. The notes and dates/numbers are as follows:

12/18/13 - Primary fermentation began. Initial gravity 1.090.
12/25/13 - Racked to secondary. Specific gravity 0.990.
1/15/14 - Specific gravity 0.990. Added metabisulphite and sorbate per kit directions. Degassed with mix-stir for 5 minutes. Added package of clarifier per kit directions. Degassed for an additional 5 minutes.
1/21/14 - degassed again for an additional 10 minutes.
2/15/14 - dissolved 1/4tsp of sodium metabilsuphite in 1/2 cup cool water per kit directions, to to bulk age. added mixture to clean 5 gallon glass carboy. racked wine from secondary into 5 gallon carboy mixing wine and metabisulphite.
Today: ready for bottling, just have some questions. I have everything ready for bottling, just want some clarification on my process.

I was planning on racking from my current bulk-aged carboy into a bottling bucket to prevent disturbing any potential sediment on the bottom of the carboy, and then obviously bottling from the bucket. Is this ridiculous logic to rack to a bucket for bottling to prevent potential disturbing of any possible sediment? Because the other side of that coin is exposing the newly racked wine to lots of oxygen with more headroom in the bucket? Should I anticipate that much sediment? Should I just bottle from my glass carboy?

I would like to bottle age these for various times. I figured I would drink a few after a month or so to account for bottle shock, to see what it tastes like. After that, I'm sure we will drink a bottle occasionally. I'd ultimately like to anticipate keeping some bottles on hand for 6, 12, 18, or 24 + months, depending on how quickly they get enjoyed.

Should I add more metabisulphite into my bottling bucket, and rack my bulk-aged wine into that, to help prevent oxidation down the line with aging in bottles?

Or will the metabisulphite I added 2/15/14 before bulk-aging suffice?

Thank you again so much for your help. This is only my second kit of wine made, but the first time I bulk-aged anything. The first kit was a Pinot Noir, and it was made exactly as the instructions instructed, and virtually unaged and consumed quickly

THANK YOU!!!!!

 

[Yooper]

I almost always use a bottling bucket because maintaining a siphon and bottling isn't as easy as using the bottling bucket. You shouldn't have a ton of sediment in the carboy, but you may have some.

I'd definitely re-sulfite at bottling.

 

[lukebuz]

Yoop - what is your opinion on oxygen exposure with the bottling bucket?

Way over-hyped, and not nearly the problem some make it out to be?

 

[NCGrayson]

I almost always use a bottling bucket because maintaining a siphon and bottling isn't as easy as using the bottling bucket. You shouldn't have a ton of sediment in the carboy, but you may have some.

I'd definitely re-sulfite at bottling.

I was hoping to hear from you Yooper!

Do you personally let it settle in the bottling bucket for a day or so before bottling? or do you just rack onto new sulfite and just bottle away?

Grayson

 

[Yooper]

Yoop - what is your opinion on oxygen exposure with the bottling bucket?

Way over-hyped, and not nearly the problem some make it out to be?

Oh, no, it's definitely not overhyped and is a huge problem for the winemaker. However, precautions ensure that oxidation doesn't happen. For example, keeping the wine with 50 ppm, give or take, of sulfites is a big prevention step. Careful racking, always topping up the carboy, and refilling airlocks as needed along with the k-meta pretty much takes care of the issue.

Racking to a bottling bucket does give an opportunity for oxygen pickup, but I rack into the sulfite solution, quietly, and then bottle from the spigot/bottling wand. It's not really an issue.

I was hoping to hear from you Yooper!

Do you personally let it settle in the bottling bucket for a day or so before bottling? or do you just rack onto new sulfite and just bottle away?

Grayson

Never- I rack into the sulfite, and bottle immediately and cork.

 

[bernardsmith]

I was hoping to hear from you Yooper!

Do you personally let it settle in the bottling bucket for a day or so before bottling? or do you just rack onto new sulfite and just bottle away?

Grayson

Not Yooper (obviously) but why would you allow the wine to sit in the bottling bucket for any length of time? You would have siphoned the wine (racked it) from the carboy and so virtually no sediment will have been added to the bucket... what's the need to wait? If you have so much sediment that you will have added some to the bucket then I would argue that you should be racking this to another carboy to age a few months longer... The bottling bucket is there to allow you to bottle without any sediment and to enable you to have added any sugar to back sweeten before bottling... It is not there to enable sediment to drop out of your wine...

 

[NCGrayson]

Not Yooper (obviously) but why would you allow the wine to sit in the bottling bucket for any length of time? You would have siphoned the wine (racked it) from the carboy and so virtually no sediment will have been added to the bucket... what's the need to wait? If you have so much sediment that you will have added some to the bucket then I would argue that you should be racking this to another carboy to age a few months longer... The bottling bucket is there to allow you to bottle without any sediment and to enable you to have added any sugar to back sweeten before bottling... It is not there to enable sediment to drop out of your wine...

I was asking if there was any advantage to leaving it in the bottling bucket for say, 24 hours, to allow thorough mixing of the newly added sulphite mix, as well as settling from any sloshing around that happens during the transfer.

I guess I'm hypothetically "babying" the wine, but I know it will get sloshed around when bringing it from my cellaring area into my bottling area. I guess I could bring the carboy to my bottling area a few days ahead of racking into the bottling bucket to let things settle again. That makes sense.

 

[bernardsmith]

I was asking if there was any advantage to leaving it in the bottling bucket for say, 24 hours, to allow thorough mixing of the newly added sulphite mix, as well as settling from any sloshing around that happens during the transfer.

I guess I'm hypothetically "babying" the wine, but I know it will get sloshed around when bringing it from my cellaring area into my bottling area. I guess I could bring the carboy to my bottling area a few days ahead of racking into the bottling bucket to let things settle again. That makes sense.

If you dissolve the K-meta in a little water (it does not dissolve easily in alcohol) and stir the dissolved KM then it will have dispersed as needed. If you are back sweetening and you are adding K-sorbate and you add the K-sorbate and you know that the wine is clear and there are few yeast cells hanging around then you would (IMO) be adding the KS to the carboy and so after a few days you can rack to the bottling bucket and add whatever sweetener you want without any fear of refermentation... But you should only stabilize clear wine (no cloudiness - ie no yeast, and virtually no dissolved CO2)... You don't want to "slosh" your wine around for any reason at that point. (you will have degassed the wine before you are ready to bottle)...

 

[fuelish]

I guess I could bring the carboy to my bottling area a few days ahead of racking into the bottling bucket to let things settle again. That makes sense.

Yup this is a quick and easy way to reduce transfer of any sediment....I typically put my carboy in position to transfer to bottling bucket at least 24 hours ahead of time to allow the "dust" to resettle...this involves bringing upstairs from my basement, but I much prefer bottling in my kitchen to bottling in the basement....much easier cleanup