To rack or not to rack

[Coolcanuck]

I'm currently making a batch of blueberry wine following Jack Kellers recipe, it calls to stir the wine daily and rack when the wine reaches 1.040, but I'm just wondering would it hurt to allow the wine to hit closer to 1.000, the reason for this is to allow it soak more of the flavour of the berries and become dryer it's been 4 days so far and haven't taken an fg reading yet.

 

[Yooper]

I'm currently making a batch of blueberry wine following Jack Kellers recipe, it calls to stir the wine daily and rack when the wine reaches 1.040, but I'm just wondering would it hurt to allow the wine to hit closer to 1.000, the reason for this is to allow it soak more of the flavour of the berries and become dryer it's been 4 days so far and haven't taken an fg reading yet.

In four days, the berries should be starting to turn color (paler) and left longer than that, they can actually start to rot. I'd go five days or so on the berries, attempting to rack at 1.020 or so. The reason for racking then is to get the wine off of the gross lees but still have some c02 production to help protect the wine during racking and in the new vessel.

 

[Coolcanuck]

Thank you Yooper, the berries/raisins are in a paint strainer bag and I cannot see how they look at the momen due to the dark colour of the must, I'll take an FG reading tomorrow and see where we are at , but 1.040 seems a bit high, I ended up loosing the strawberry batch I had so I'm going to make sure this one turns out, I just don't like to stick to many things on the wine if not nessesary since that's how I think I lost my last batch, so I'll take a sample out with my trusty turkey baister tomorrow and test it