Muscadine Wine Bottling Help

[browning348]

Today I had my first attempt at bottling my first batch of fruit wine which were wild muscadines that I aquired from a friend in September. It was my first try at a real wine and I did many things wrong, but surprisingly it turned out quite good. I tested the gravity and it read 1.001 so I decided to bottle. Now the problem is that I cant cork the wine because after it was siphoned it has started bubbling again. If the gravity is so low, why does it seem like the fermenting process is still going?

 

[Yooper]

Today I had my first attempt at bottling my first batch of fruit wine which were wild muscadines that I aquired from a friend in September. It was my first try at a real wine and I did many things wrong, but surprisingly it turned out quite good. I tested the gravity and it read 1.001 so I decided to bottle. Now the problem is that I cant cork the wine because after it was siphoned it has started bubbling again. If the gravity is so low, why does it seem like the fermenting process is still going?

It could be c02 coming out of solution, if the wine was gassy. But at 1.001 it very well may not be done. Most fruit wines will finish at .990 or so.

 

[browning348]

Makes sense. I didn't realize it would drop below 1.000. Right now I guess it's a "sparkling" wine. Pretty tasty.

 

[Yooper]

Makes sense. I didn't realize it would drop below 1.000. Right now I guess it's a "sparkling" wine. Pretty tasty.

You can bottle in beer bottles with caps, but not in wine bottles with corks, which will pop out under pressure.

Depending on how close to done the wine is, and how gassy it is, you may have explosive carbonation but probably not. I wouldn't bottle, and I think bottle bombs would be a pain, but others do if they are in a big hurry.

 

[browning348]

I guess the correct term at this point would be that the wine has been racked into several wine bottles. They aren't corked, just capped with the rubber wine bottle stoppers. I put 2 and 2 together and decided it would be a bad idea to cork because they would explode. I have right at 12 liters. Right now the plan is drink on one bottle, pasturize a bottle or two to kill the yeast and hopefully be able to cork and age, and if I can round up a bottle capper, cap a few in beer bottles and save for summer time for some fizzy drinks.

I'm in no hurry. This is hobby I started about a year ago with concentrated juices and it's evolved to this. Most of it is given away, I just enjoy the creation of it.