Transfer Vs Racking

[usaftrevor87]

So I just want to get this right....
When it says "Transfer" to secondary that means taking all the sediment and lees with it... right?
And Racking is referring to siphoning out the wine and leaving the lees behind?

Trying some strawberry wine tonight and don't want to mess it up.
Thanks

 

[stpug]

To me, they mean the same thing: Move the liquid portion to a new container leaving the sediment behind.

 

[Yooper]

"Transfer" always means "racking". That's just another way of saying to move the wine, and unless otherwise specified it's assumed that it will be via siphoning.

 

[usaftrevor87]

oh... alright... So I was a wee bit off haha
I thought transfer meant keeping all sediment and everything. That really didn't make sense though in my head because whats the point of putting it in a new container then?
Thanks again for the help.

 

[Heavywalker]

In reality they mean the same thing, but I always think of them as two different things.

For transferring I think of it like this... This is usually the step where I would transfer to my secondary vessel from my primary, at this point I am not too worried about picking up some sediment from the primary vessel. I just tilt the bucket start the auto siphon and place it on the bottom of the primary and let gravity do it's thing. There is soooo much sediment in suspension at this point that it really doesn't matter if you pick some up during the transfer.

For racking... I think of this as after fermentation is complete and the wine starts to clear, at this point I am careful to not pick up any of the lees or sediment at each racking.

They are really the same thing but that is the way I differenciate the terms used.

 

[WVMJ]

Heavywalker is almost right. Transfer just means move your wine from the primary to the secondary, leave the gross lees which usually is considered to have the fruit bits in it. You can use a big jug to scoop up the wine and all the floating bits of fruit and pour it through a filter. You could just dump it into the carboy. Its more about the purpose then how you do it. Get the wine minus the gross less into a secondary ANY way you can, its supersaturated with CO2 so unless you do nuts stirring it to a froth which would defeat the purpose of leaving the gross stuff behind you dont have to worry much about oxygenation. Racking on the other hand has as its purpose seperating your finishing wine from any sediment and protecting from oxygenation. Here the method of choice is moving it with a hose and leaving as much stuff at the bottom as possible. WVMJ