Kegging/bottling LOTS of wine

[Yooper]

Last fall was a great year for fruit for us, for the first time in a long time.

I made a ton of wine, as the fruit was ready. I also made cider (found a cider press for 100 dollars!!!!!).

We go away in the winter, so the house is cool. My goal has been to get the wine ready for clearing, so the cool temperatures can help that along and we bottle or keg the wine in the spring. We keg the "table wine" and put the reds upstairs, and the whites in the cellar where it's cool for that.

So far I've kegged 13 gallons of apple/crabapple wine and 5 gallons of native grape wine, and 5 gallons of chokecherry wine.

Today I went around and checked on all of the others. 9 gallons of plum wine is finished, but didn't clear so I used pectic enzyme on those carboys. The oaked blackberry is fantastic and ready to bottle (3 gallons). The blueberry (1 gallon) is boring to me, but I haven't added any acid blend or tannin yet. The crabapple/apple mix is wonderful, and I have 13 gallons left of it to bottle/keg. The dandelion is a beautiful golden color and I will bottle that one. I have 12 gallons of chokecherry that is very nice, but a bit tannic so I probably won't oak it like I had planned.

The thing is- I sampled a wee bit of all of them, so I felt a bit woozy by 10 AM! Winemaking is NOT for wimps!

 

[nhwrecker]

Yoop,
suck it up! I think you need to make another round of your carboys before lunch, just to make sure that the taste is consistent.

It's not sacrificing brain cells - it's quality control!

 

[Kdog22]

Random question.. When you are kegging those wines, you are racking into the keg, locking the lid, then hitting the headspace with CO2 and letting it sit until you hook it up to drink? Basically kegging storage?

 

[TheZymurgist]

Last fall was a great year for fruit for us, for the first time in a long time.

I made a ton of wine, as the fruit was ready. I also made cider (found a cider press for 100 dollars!!!!!).

We go away in the winter, so the house is cool. My goal has been to get the wine ready for clearing, so the cool temperatures can help that along and we bottle or keg the wine in the spring. We keg the "table wine" and put the reds upstairs, and the whites in the cellar where it's cool for that.

So far I've kegged 13 gallons of apple/crabapple wine and 5 gallons of native grape wine, and 5 gallons of chokecherry wine.

Today I went around and checked on all of the others. 9 gallons of plum wine is finished, but didn't clear so I used pectic enzyme on those carboys. The oaked blackberry is fantastic and ready to bottle (3 gallons). The blueberry (1 gallon) is boring to me, but I haven't added any acid blend or tannin yet. The crabapple/apple mix is wonderful, and I have 13 gallons left of it to bottle/keg. The dandelion is a beautiful golden color and I will bottle that one. I have 12 gallons of chokecherry that is very nice, but a bit tannic so I probably won't oak it like I had planned.

The thing is- I sampled a wee bit of all of them, so I felt a bit woozy by 10 AM! Winemaking is NOT for wimps!

So....

13 gallons apple/crabapple wine already kegged
13 gallons apple/crabapple wine still left to keg
5 gallons native grape wine kegged
5 gallons chokecherry wine kegged
12 gallons chokecherry still to keg
9 gallons plum wine
3 gallons blackberry
1 gallon blueberry

That's 61 gallons right there, and I didn't see a volume for dandelion! I'd say that's a win!!!

 

[Yooper]

Random question.. When you are kegging those wines, you are racking into the keg, locking the lid, then hitting the headspace with CO2 and letting it sit until you hook it up to drink? Basically kegging storage?

Yes, and purging out the gas as I don't want carbonated wine. Sometimes I carbonate cider, though. I only then turn the gas on to dispense, at a low psi, so the wine doesn't carbonate.

We still bottle a lot, but for our daily "house wines", kegging them has been so much easier!

So....

13 gallons apple/crabapple wine already kegged
13 gallons apple/crabapple wine still left to keg
5 gallons native grape wine kegged
5 gallons chokecherry wine kegged
12 gallons chokecherry still to keg
9 gallons plum wine
3 gallons blackberry
1 gallon blueberry

That's 61 gallons right there, and I didn't see a volume for dandelion! I'd say that's a win!!!

Well, I just turned around and there are another 13 gallons of apple wine behind me. I forgot about those three carboys.

There is also a 5 gallon carboy of native grape wine someplace, because I know we made more than 5 gallons. It might be behind the couch or something, because it's hard to lose a full carboy!

 

[TheZymurgist]

That's just awesome.

 

[mcstout]

Chokecherry wine! That sounds amazing and must have taken a ton of fruit.

 

[Yooper]

Chokecherry wine! That sounds amazing and must have taken a ton of fruit.

We typically use 3 pounds per gallon, so it's not really as much fruit as some other wines. I use 45 pounds for a 15 gallon batch.

 

[Yooper]

Another wine I forgot- 6 gallons of rhubarb I already kegged and forgot all about. It's in the cellar, in a corner and I just didn't even remember. It's a sad state of affairs when you can't keep track of you wine, I think!

 

[Kdog22]

Yes, and purging out the gas as I don't want carbonated wine. Sometimes I carbonate cider, though. I only then turn the gas on to dispense, at a low psi, so the wine doesn't carbonate.

We still bottle a lot, but for our daily "house wines", kegging them has been so much easier!




Well, I just turned around and there are another 13 gallons of apple wine behind me. I forgot about those three carboys.

There is also a 5 gallon carboy of native grape wine someplace, because I know we made more than 5 gallons. It might be behind the couch or something, because it's hard to lose a full carboy!

That's an awesome idea. Never thought to do that! Now I have a reason to buy more kegs... lol

 

[Yooper]

That's an awesome idea. Never thought to do that! Now I have a reason to buy more kegs... lol

We were bottling all of our wine, and finally Bob and I looked at each other like, "Why on earth are we bottling all of this, when we mostly drink it at home?!?!" I need a few more kegs, as most of them are full now, but for everyday wines, kegging them is awesome. Stainless is great for wine- it's usually fermenting in stainless conicals in wineries- and means far less labor. And I think in the long run it is cheaper- good corks are expensive!

We still bottle the smaller amounts, plus a few off of each batch for aging and gifts, but we definitely save a ton of time and labor by kegging the larger batches of everyday wines.

Even when we do a cheap-ish wine kit, that's usually an everyday wine like chianti, and we'll keg that.

 

[rlmiller10]

We typically use 3 pounds per gallon, so it's not really as much fruit as some other wines. I use 45 pounds for a 15 gallon batch.

Yooper, you have patience. Choke cherries are so little, picking 45 lbs of them would be a major task. I love them, make my favorite jelly but never even considered picking enough to make wine.

I need to pick more though as I did find a new use. Freeze some of the juice in ice cube trays and use that as ice in bourbon. Amazingly good.

 

[WinterWarrior]

We were bottling all of our wine, and finally Bob and I looked at each other like, "Why on earth are we bottling all of this, when we mostly drink it at home?!?!"

Yooper:

I never thought about kegging my wine and, yes, finding bottles for all that I'm planning to make is crazy! I can't keep up with all the bottles I need and most of our friends drink beer (the twist-off bottle type), so no help there. And I honestly don't want to have to buy all new bottles all the time.

Does the wine have to be refrigerated once it's kegged? We have a kegging system for beer but I don't have space for a bunch of kegs in the fridge.

Obviously, I don't know that much about kegging as that was the hubby's area and he always did the kegging -- I'm the wino ... errr, I mean, wine maker!

 

[WinterWarrior]

OK - went to my LHB today and I think I managed to have them answer my question.

Sooooo, correct me if I got this wrong.

Still wine in kegs requires nitrogen canister instead of CO2.
So, nitro plus adapter to use existing CO2 system. ($125 for nitro & $23 for adapter -- LHS prices 4/2014)

Carbonated wine (hard cider, hard lemonade, etc.) in kegs requires CO2.

Kegs do not have to be kept in fridge just room temp.

Do I got it right???

YAY!

 

[Kdog22]

OK - went to my LHB today and I think I managed to have them answer my question.

Sooooo, correct me if I got this wrong.

Still wine in kegs requires nitrogen canister instead of CO2.
So, nitro plus adapter to use existing CO2 system. ($125 for nitro & $23 for adapter -- LHS prices 4/2014)

Carbonated wine (hard cider, hard lemonade, etc.) in kegs requires CO2.

Kegs do not have to be kept in fridge just room temp.

Do I got it right???

YAY!

From all that i've read, still wine in kegs does not "require" nitrogen. CO2 is an inert gas and suitable for wine kegging. If you think about it, CO2 is what's given off by the wine during fermentation and is also what fills the headspace, protecting the wine from oxidation. Shouldn't be any reason not to use that in a keg. Fill the headspace in the keg with CO2, purging out the oxygen and you're good to go.

 

[Homercidal]

From all that i've read, still wine in kegs does not "require" nitrogen. CO2 is an inert gas and suitable for wine kegging. If you think about it, CO2 is what's given off by the wine during fermentation and is also what fills the headspace, protecting the wine from oxidation. Shouldn't be any reason not to use that in a keg. Fill the headspace in the keg with CO2, purging out the oxygen and you're good to go.

I think the problem that becomes clear after a few days is that CO2 will be absorbed into the wine, causing it to become sparkling. A still wine would need a gas that is not soluble in wine, like nitrogen.

I was just now trying to come up with a refrigerated, elevated gravity system for serving wine from, eliminating the need for gas to push it at all. The best thing I come up with is a refrigerated cabinet with a spigot at the bottom, using plastic bags that collapse when they are emptied, so you don't need to replace the wine with headspace like you would with a rigid container.

Homebrewed Box Wine!

 

[Homercidal]

Oh, and some people might want to be careful when posting their production numbers...

Just sayin'.

 

[Kdog22]

Hmmm... I wonder if even a serving pressure of 1-2psi of CO2 would be noticable in the wine? Makes sense the the CO2 would eventually get absorbed into the wine, even if it's just a tiny bit. I suppose it's something to consider as i've not yet heard that nitrogen can't aborb into wine.

 

[Heavywalker]

The thing is- I sampled a wee bit of all of them, so I felt a bit woozy by 10 AM! Winemaking is NOT for wimps!

Reminds me an experience I had. My fiend who owns a winery with another guy, who happens to be a real estate agent as well (follow that) had a client that purchased a foreclosed property with a garage on it, sight unseen, with the intention of building a house. Once they got inside the garage they discovered that they had bought an old winery with hundreds of barrels of wine still stored inside. He called me up to help them salvage what they could of the wine, since it had been sitting for several years without any topping up. We tasted each barrel to see if it was even salvageable with the intention of sending off the saved wine for testing to see where oxidization was. By the end of the day we were feeling pretty tipsy, and most of the wine was tasting pretty good .

We revisited a week later and ended up throwing out over half what we saved. We ended up salvaging around 20 barrels and throwing out the rest.

 

[Yooper]

I missed the c02 questions until now, so I thought I'd respond.

It's true that having c02 in the headspace may eventually carbonate the wine, but we generally have the gas off, and only turn it on enough to push the wine out. It's working out quite well for us, and we have a set up in the basement that is cool/cold (white wine and cider) and one that is upstairs (red) next to the kegerator.

 

[WinterWarrior]

I missed the c02 questions until now, so I thought I'd respond.

It's true that having c02 in the headspace may eventually carbonate the wine, but we generally have the gas off, and only turn it on enough to push the wine out. It's working out quite well for us, and we have a set up in the basement that is cool/cold (white wine and cider) and one that is upstairs (red) next to the kegerator.

Yooper -- OK ... pretend I'm stoopid!!

I pour my fermented goodness into my keg. I attach my C02 ... now what?

I've kegged beer. But let's pretend I've never kegged anything.

Would you mind going through the steps I'd need to keg a still wine so that it can be kept in the keg, not in a fridge and won't "go bad."

Do I need to put pressure on it? How do we know when enough is enough for still wine?

I like your idea of only connecting the C02 to push out the wine when we wanted a glass or 3.

We don't care if it gets a bit carbonated due to C02 in the headspace of the keg. I'm just not sure what to do.

This way I can save myself roughly $150 on nitro & an adapter and spend it instead on more kegs.

 

[Kdog22]

I'd imagine it's just racking into the sanitized keg, sealing it up, hooking up the gas line and turning on the CO2 while pulling the relief valve a handful of times to purge he oxygen out of the headspace, leaving nothing but CO2 in the headspace. Then disconnecting the keg until it's ready to be used.

Yooper mentioned hooking up the lines and keeping the CO2 pressure off the keg until they want to pour a glass under minimal serving pressure. Then shutting of the CO2 when not it use. Good way to give less chance of CO2 to absorb into the wine and allowing it to lightly carb.