Newbie Dilemma

[PA-Wine]

Hey Everybody

I have recently started fermenting my own wine with the absolute bare necessities. My first batch of milk jug wine finished up about a week ago and is surprisingly tasty.

Since then I have ordered some real wine yeast and a glass carboy with an airlock. I currently have welch's concentrate wine going in that one and it seems to be about done fermenting. It has been in there for about 10 days. The issue is that, being on such a tight budget, I do not have many other glass containers to rack into. I have quart mason jars, a few swing top bottles, and a couple empty vodka bottles. I plan on using these for the "bottling stage".

My question is whether I should pour directly from the primary carboy into these bottles, or pour the wine into another receptacle while I clean the carboy then put it back in. I am afraid to put the wine directly into the airght bottles as I have heard of bottles blowing up. I also do not want to leave the wine sitting on the layer of dead lees for any prolonged period of time.

I also have a jug of fresh pressed apple juice from the farmers market fermenting which I will have to deal with soon.

If anyone has suggestions I would appreciate it.

Thanks,

Mike

 

[Yooper]

Never pour the wine- it will ruin it! You really want to prevent any splashing or any oxygen pick up in the wine, so moving it can put it at risk.

What winemakers do is "racking"- that is, siphoning. Siphoning to a new container several times during the type the wine is in a carboy is important, to avoid oxidation as well as to get the wine off the lees.

If you can't get another carboy, then you could siphon to another container with limited headspace and siphon back, but that isn't ideal.

One thing that many winemakers do is use campden tablets. They are a tablet of potassium metabisulfites. Using sulfites, in much lower doses than commercial wine, protects the wine as sulfites are an antioxidant. They bind to the wine so that oxygen can't, and that protects the wine during racking and during bottling. They dissipate, so are added at intervals. A typical "dose" would be one crushed and dissolved campden tablet per gallon at every other racking and at bottling.

 

[pumpkinman2012]

Great advice from Yooper, the only way I see you being able to rack off the lees is to rack to another container and then back into the clean carboy, but Yooper already stated the risks involved. You need to get it stabilized with meta or campden tablets, do you have a hydrometer to be sure that it has finished fermenting?

 

[PA-Wine]

Thank you for the responses. I do not have a hydrometer or a means to siphon the wine from one container to the other. I will look into getting some of those Campden tablets.

For the meantime, would it be better for me to pour the wine carefully in and out of the carboy to get it off of the lees? Or leave it on the lees?

 

[Yooper]

Thank you for the responses. I do not have a hydrometer or a means to siphon the wine from one container to the other. I will look into getting some of those Campden tablets.

For the meantime, would it be better for me to pour the wine carefully in and out of the carboy to get it off of the lees? Or leave it on the lees?

No, pouring it will ruin it, fairly quickly. You need some tubing, and to siphon it to a new carboy. If you can't, then I don't have anything much else to offer. Pouring it will ruin it so quickly that it wouldn't even be worth bottling in the future. Tubing is cheap, really cheap, like 15 cents a foot.

 

[pumpkinman2012]

In reality, you need to get it off the lees, unfortunately you're running the risk of oxidation - as long as you can stabilize with meta or campden tablets you should be OK.
Keep us updated!

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi PA-Wine, I agree with Yooper. Pouring wine is asking for the wine to be oxidized and oxidation will ruin your wine...BUT... How much wine have you made? How long will that wine be aged and how long will it be before it is all drunk? If we are talking about a gallon of wine then we are talking about 5 bottles... and if you drink a bottle a week (or give away a few bottles then we are talking about - what ? A month or two. I am not convinced that you will be able to detect off flavors resulting from oxidation from the wine you are making in a couple of months. But that said, if you live in the US and you are near a local home brew store you can almost certainly pick up a few feet of food grade plastic tubing that you can use to siphon (rack) your wine. The cost is a few dollars. And if we are indeed talking about a gallon of wine then a sanitized plastic milk container will not cause any problem if you simply rack the wine into that for the few minutes it will take you to clean out the carboy or jug and rack it back. You don't want to store wine in any plastic that was not designed for storing alcohol or acids - because of the dangers that come from chemicals being leached from the plastic but using food grade plastic to hold wine for five or fifteen minutes is not going to do anyone any harm...
Bottom line? If you do decide to pour you don't want to store the wine for more than a month or two, and better would be to rack and racking does not really require much more than about five feet of tubing and another plastic container that you may already have... )

 

[menerdari]

And don't suck on the tube to start the siphon, Fill the tube with clean water, put one end in the wine while holding your finger over the other end, the bottle you are racking to needs to be lower than the bottle you are racking from, chair and table work great for 1 gallon batches (put a plastic bag on the chair if it is upholstered to prevent stains) once you lower the end of the tubing you have a finger on below the wine jug, let your finger off and run the water into whatever you have handy, once the water has finished and wine starts coming out pinch the hose and move to the bottle you are racking to
Try to keep the hose in the wine bottle above the lees in the bottom so you can avoid racking that stuff over, as much as possible
When you get around to buying a racking cane or autosiphon it will have a standoff to keep you out of the lees
Good luck

 

[PA-Wine]

Hi PA-Wine, I agree with Yooper. Pouring wine is asking for the wine to be oxidized and oxidation will ruin your wine...BUT... How much wine have you made? How long will that wine be aged and how long will it be before it is all drunk? If we are talking about a gallon of wine then we are talking about 5 bottles... and if you drink a bottle a week (or give away a few bottles then we are talking about - what ? A month or two. I am not convinced that you will be able to detect off flavors resulting from oxidation from the wine you are making in a couple of months. But that said, if you live in the US and you are near a local home brew store you can almost certainly pick up a few feet of food grade plastic tubing that you can use to siphon (rack) your wine. The cost is a few dollars. And if we are indeed talking about a gallon of wine then a sanitized plastic milk container will not cause any problem if you simply rack the wine into that for the few minutes it will take you to clean out the carboy or jug and rack it back. You don't want to store wine in any plastic that was not designed for storing alcohol or acids - because of the dangers that come from chemicals being leached from the plastic but using food grade plastic to hold wine for five or fifteen minutes is not going to do anyone any harm...
Bottom line? If you do decide to pour you don't want to store the wine for more than a month or two, and better would be to rack and racking does not really require much more than about five feet of tubing and another plastic container that you may already have... )

Thank you everyone for the answers. I am certainly not looking to store this wine for any long period of time as it is only a one gallon batch. The wine is surprisingly tasty and my friends have already drank most of it!

I found a home brew store locally and I am planning on making a trip there this coming weekend. Hopefully I will soon be able to bump it up to 5 gallon batches with the proper equipment.

As of now I have two separate gallons of apple going, one organic white grape, and one cranberry. We'll see how they turn out!

 

[edues]

From a budget minded to an other. As for equipment you can get away pretty cheap if your creative. A great way start is to get a wine makers kit. You'll get all you need to start but an hydrometer. A kits around $50.00. As for racking I used gallon wine gugs get a gallon of wine drink it an keep the glass. I have more tips if you want them. But everything you use must be food grade. Don't want your wine tasting like hose water.

 

[edues]

Also if you age you're wine if you think its good now. Give it time. If you do it right it will be 1000% better in a year. And doing it right isn't hard. Well waiting is the hardest part. If you make 5 gallons of wine.... Or if you want 5 gallons at the end I would make at least 6 to start. You're always going to loose some. But if you make 5 gallons its fun to use the 1 gallon jugs cause then you can do different things to each gallon and make detailed notes on each one then in time try them and see what you like best. Some might be bad some good. Stuff like that makes it YOUR wine. Have fun!!