How many times...

[Blacksmith1]

..can I rack a wine before I hurt it?
Besides being bored and impatient, I'm trying to keep as much sediment out as I can as I don't particularly like the taste of yeast other than in bread. And I still have no real idea what I'm doing as none of my brews have finished yet. I currently have a crude apfelwine, a very basic fruit juice wine that should have a very thin taste due to me mistreating it, and an almost proper batch of fruit juice wine that I really want to come out right (plus an apple cider that's almost done) all are one gallon batches though I don't think that makes much difference.

 

[Maylar]

Every time you rack a wine you risk oxidizing it. You also risk contamination from whatever equipment is in contact with it. And you lose some volume and need to make up for headspace.

My preference is to rack only once, at the end of primary, for clearing and long term aging. If I end up using a fining agent to accelerate clearing, I'll also rack off that. But otherwise, only once.

 

[Mallerstang]

I rack after about a month in the secondary, then about every two months until it's clear enough to bottle. If lees are building up fast I might rack sooner than that, and if it gets to the point where nothing is dropping out then I stop racking and just let it clear.

It's usually three rackings, occasionally two. I have done four, but I think that's too many.

That's not counting transferring from the primary to the secondary, or bottling.

 

[jgmillr1]

If you control the oxygen exposure and keep up with your sulfites, you can rack more times as needed. For example, you can purge air out of the carboy before racking into it with CO2 or nitrogen, if you have a tank handy. Or you can add a prophylactic dose of 20ppm sulfites each time you rack to manage the oxygen it picks up.

The real key is racking when you need to and allowing enough time for gravity to settle the yeast for you.