New To Wine Making - Concord Grape Wine - At End of Primary Fermentation
Shalom Shachne
This is my first attempt at making wine with Concord Grapes grown in
my yard. I am using a beginner's wine making kit, and and a very
general recipe for Concord grapes.
I was not too sure of how much grapes I started with (didn't have any
scale), but I ended up with about 5 gallons of liquid from the crushed
grapes (but with possibly too high a proportion of grape skins and
pulp to liquid -- I didn't add much water).
Also - I didn't use fermentation bag (although I have one) for primary
fermentation (recipe/instructions didn't call for doing that),
although I see several instruction sets on line say to use one. The
skins and pulp are in the liquid, and mostly floated to top.
I am pretty sure this is now at end of primary fermentation period -
it started at 1.090 SG and now is at 1.010 (after about 8 days), and
have seen quite a few different variations on what the next step would
be.
Here are the questions:
1. Some instructions say transfer to secondary by pouring wine from
primary to secondary through a funnel which has a cheese cloth/
strainer on it. (And then rack in about month, using siphon.)
I read other instructions which said to pour free juice into
secondary, and then press skins through nylon strainer bag.
Finally, other instructions said to rack using siphon hose into
secondary container.
Which of the above would be best as next step?
2. For secondary fermentation, I have a 5 gallon carboy with plastic
air lock. A few sites said I should put some wine aside to top off.
But I don't have another container and another air lock, can you put
the top off wine into a mason jar (or something similar?
3. What to fill airlock with, water or sulfite solution? I've seen
someone say that sulfite solution in air lock adds bad odor, and that
water is sufficient. Others say use sulfite? What's the way to
decide which to use?
Thanks for any advice.
shbailey
The answers to your questions can be found here:
http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/
You will get more volume and possibly better color if you press the
pulp.
Make sure your carboy is topped up at the beginning. If you have
extra, you can put it in a properly sized wine bottle (topped up) and
get a small stopper and another air lock. If you can't do this, buy a
bottle of commercial Concord wine to top up with. In order to rack
(followed by topping up) you will need another carboy in about a month.
Shalom Shachne
Thanks for the response!
Shalom Shachne
Actually, if I could ask a follow up question. Last night I
transferred to secondary. I tried both ways of transferring, pouring
through a funnel with a filter in it, and siphoning. In the end I had
to siphon most of it because it was too hard to pour such a large
amount of liquid with the funnel (I had not big enough - and primary
was messy to pour from). Using the siphon, it transferred some number
of grape skins in addition to pulp. There is a layer (not a huge
amount) of grape skins floating a top of car boy. Will that be a
problem?
Also, ran into the problem that I slightly overfilled the carboy
initially, I thought I had only filled up to below the neck, but the
wine expanded and started bubbling out of top of air lock. I had to
dump some - I think I wasn't exactly sure at what level to top-off to.
shbailey
That is kind of an unusual problem. Perhaps it is addressed somewhere
in Jack Keller's WineBlog, but you would have to search through his
archives.
If you had another carboy, you could go ahead and rack it away from
the skins. Your biggest problem may be that the skins at the top of
the carboy will dry out on the surface and make them more susceptible
to mold or something. Now you know why straining bags are
recommended.
Good Luck,
Stephen