Folks,
I'm a 'newbie' at making wine and at this stage am using wine kits that allow me to mix the ingredients like a soup mix.
A question.....once the wine is racked off the primary fermentor to the secondary........is there a negative effect of 'headspace' in the carboy. I left the wine in a carboy of generous size, but with an airlock in place. Seems as though the airlock will take care of oxygen issues, even though the fermentation had stopped, for the most part.
Advise, please...
TIA..
Tim
Absolutely! Fill that carboy up! If necessary, go out and buy some innnocuous wine of the same color and top it up.
vince norris
If the wine was fermenting fairly vigorously when put in the secondary and IF you do not open it to check it for any reason, it should be just fine. However, you do need to protect the wine form air. If you have several inches of head space when you put the wine in secondary, that is filled with air and will damage the wine. If the ferment was going strongly the air will quickly be purged from the carboy by CO2 and the airlock will protect it. But every time you open it new air comes in and it can and will damage the wine.
Best be safe. Rack to smaller carboys or top up with something.
Ray
Tim, it seems this subject is controversial - especially on this forum. The fellow who's mentoring me insists that ullage (air space) in the secondary is of no concern. There is enough CO2 in the wine itself at that early stage that ullage in the carboy poses no risk. He believes it would be safe in fact for 4-6 weeks although he always pulls the wine off its sediments after about 14 days and then tops up in that "second" secondary. Also, if the airlock is disturbed in that first 14 days, he tops up then as well. I saw one of his wines in its secondary with about 2 litres of ullage. I gasped; he laughed. He has made wines and liqueurs for nearly four decades and his wine is as good as it gets this side of glory IMO. Having said that, it's never a mistake to top up at every stage. I'm ready to believe however, that it's overly cautious to panic about ullage in that first 14 days on the secondary. I'll have to buy my friend a computer one of these days so he can speak for himself.
Cheers, Jim
Thanks a ton for this information......i've made beer before and wine is a new experience for me. The wine that i made was a kit, and seems to taste ok(..though i am just a beginner in the wine experience).
Your post was very helpful....thank you..
Tim Wisniewski
That's fine if he's racking to secondary while the wine is still fermenting, but if it isn't I wouldn't recommend that course.
Tom S
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