Can I top up a country wine?

[Jacktar]

I racked my peach wine from the bucket to my 3 gallon carboy. I wanted to get it sealed up and off the lees after 9 days of fermentation. In the end, I ended up with a lot of lees in my carboy because i wanted to get as much liquid in there to prevent too much head space.

I know I'll need to rack this again at some point, but what do I do with it? I don't have a 2.5 gallon carboy. If I rack it off the lees properly, I won't have enough wine to fill 3 gallons and I don't have another Peach wine to top it up. What should I do to prevent the headspace?


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[Yooper]

I racked my peach wine from the bucket to my 3 gallon carboy. I wanted to get it sealed up and off the lees after 9 days of fermentation. In the end, I ended up with a lot of lees in my carboy because i wanted to get as much liquid in there to prevent too much head space.

I know I'll need to rack this again at some point, but what do I do with it? I don't have a 2.5 gallon carboy. If I rack it off the lees properly, I won't have enough wine to fill 3 gallons and I don't have another Peach wine to top it up. What should I do to prevent the headspace?


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It has to be kept topped up. You could try some commercial wine if you can't do smaller carboys- some pinot grigio would work for peach but it would dilute some of the peach flavor. Otherwise, you could get two one gallon jugs and a .5 gallon growler (with bungs and airlocks, of course).

Some winemakers suggest marbles to help with headspace issues- but I tried it and it would take like 1000 marbles in some cases!

 

[Jacktar]

I think the small carboys will be my solution. This is my first peach wine and I don't want to change its character with a commercial wine.


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