Newbie question regarding second carbouy

Although I still consider myself somewhat of a newbie, I think I can help you here.

I've successfully completed 3 of the Selection Series kits with the Cab being among them. It still needs to age a few more months, but it has great potential and I struggle with not popping a cork on another bottle.

The Selection kits are designed to rack into a 6 gallon carboy. After the primary fermentation is complete, I racked into a 6 gal. carboy. When I added the secondary ingredients (without racking) I just topped off right in the 6 gallon carboy. Basically, I simply followed the instructions supplied with the kit. :-). The next racking was done into a different 6 gal. carboy. Not much topping off needed.

I suppose racking to the 5 gal carboy per your plan wouldn't hurt, but I've had very good results just using a 6 gal.

IHTH Nick

My thought was to keep the extra gallon in a 1 gal carbouy or some type of smaller container, so that I would have extra for topping-off if need be (I think I read that somewhere). I figured using the wine to top-off would result in better quality than topping-off with water. Also, 5 gal is enough for me.

It appears that you are using 2 carbouys, just both are the same size. Am I correct?

I am a big proponent of having a variety of sizes so you can avoid topping up. But this is far more important when making wines from scratch than kits. Kits do not drop as much sediment so topping up is not quite as big of an issue. Still, I find it nice to go from a 6 to a 5 and then put the extra in a 1/2 gal jug. Then when/if I rack again, I can go to a 5 and use the 1/2 to top up. But if you start using 6's and 5's pick up some 1/2's for the difference.

Dang this hobby grows. I started with 2 carboy's, now I have a 13, about

Ray

That's correct. And I suppose you may end up with a higher quality by racking to a 5 gallon carboy. I just wanted to point out that the kit was designed to taste just fine and allowed for the topping off with water.

I don't know the degree of hgiher quality that you will attain by using the 5 gal. carboy in lieu of the 6. I do know that you will end up with another gallon of some decent tasting wine if you use a 6 gallon carboy. :-)

Do you need to use an airlock with those small sized jugs, or do you just cap? I guess fermentation could create enough CO2 to bust the bottle, but maybe after the primary fermentation is done, that isn't likely. It just would be easier and cheaper to keep the excess wine in a jug that didn't have an airlock (i.e. was only capped).

I put an airlock on all my wine jugs during bulk aging. You never know when things might start up again and push a stopper out. All it takes sometimes is a few sturdy yeastie beasties.... I had a wine start up again at 9 months and pop my corks. Darlene

I use airlocks on anything I consider to be still "in progress" -- down to a

Bart

A 23 l kit is 6 gallons. I use a 6.5 gallon car boy for the first racking. I usually dont start with a full 6 gallons but end up with around 5.75 gallons in the primary.

For the second racking, I use a 5 gallon carboy. This minimizes air exposure and oxidation. No longer than I age, it probably doesn't matter much- but it does matter.

As has been stated her already, several car boys allow several kits to be started at different times. While on e wine is sitting in the 5 gal car boy, another can be racked into the 6 gallon one. The more the merrier.

I say get 2: one six or six and a half, and one five.

p.s. we have several clear wine bottles sanitized at racking time to catch the DREGS and drink them later!

-- KB

Thanks for all the info., folks.

Another question. With this being my first batch and being that it's a kit, is racking into the second carbouy that important? In other words, would the quality increase tremendously, or only a tiny bit? I can definitely see that I will need to add a second carbouy and some small jugs in the future, especially if I want to make some wine from scratch. Just wondering if it's that critical with this first batch.

I'm also new; on my third kit.

I strongly recommend you visit the Jack Keller web site and read every page; really helped me a lot.

Mark

It depends what result you are looking for...if you can get a secondary then do it. If you can't for this batch then it won't ruin it. You will most definately have sediment in your final product which doesn't affect drinkability (just how it looks). I would suggest you bottle when you have the same reading on your hydrometer 3 days in a row, then leave the bottles for a couple of months before drinking. If you don't have a hydrometer and can't get one, make sure there is no activity for a week or so. This can be a touch dangerous if fermentation restarts the bottles will be under great pressure.

Again, it isn't critical to rack or bulk age but it makes life so much easier. Jason