wine krausen?

jonp9576 · Feb 10, 2009

i am thinking about trying out a wine kit. i have a bunch of empty corny kegs that i dont plan to use any time soon but no open fermenters. is a corny keg enough room to ferment wine?

i recall when making apfelwein there is no real need for too much head space, is all wine like this?

jonp9576 · Feb 10, 2009

anyone make wine out there?

ArcaneXor · Feb 10, 2009

My experience is extremely limited, as I've made Apfelwein only, but when I made it with wine yeast, I didn't get any significant kraeusen. With ale yeast, I did, and quite a lot of it, although not as much as with a typical beer.

Yooper · Feb 10, 2009

jonp9576 said:
anyone make wine out there?

Heavens man- I just went for a beer! I was coming right back.

Seriously, I make a ton of wine. There are a couple of things that may make it more difficult. One is simply logisitics. All of the commerical kits make 6 gallons of wine. So that would rule out the corny keg.

If you make your own "country" wine, that would be fine. However, there are some things to be aware of. One is the amount of sediment. It's quite a lot, and if you use fruit, you'll have some seeds. I can see that being a problem for the dip tube. That's not my main concern though. One of the things about wine is that most of the time you want it perfectly still. That is, not the least carbonated. One of the ways it happens is by simply time in the carboy with an airlock, so the co2 can escape. Cold aging really "holds" the co2, so that the wine must be degassed, or the temperature raised at the end so that the co2 can blow off a bit. In a corny, the co2 would be readily reabsorbed back into the wine. That would be fine for a wine that you wanted "sparkling", like maybe apfelwein or some cider. But not good in a merlot!

jonp9576 · Feb 12, 2009

yooper. thanks for the info,

so heres another question for you. what if i make a double batch, 12 gallons. put it between 3 cornys. 4 gallons in each. i would leave it in my basement very still with an airlock hooked up to the gas in post.

to avoid the sediment, i can siphon out the wine. for the degassing, what if i were to hook some kind of vacuum pump up to the gas in side? would that pull the co2 out of solution?