Fermenter question

Are you talking about fermentation only or storage after fermentation? For fermentation, you do not need to worry about oxygen exposure. There are many food grade HDPE containers suitable for this. For long term storage, if you do not plan on using a barrel, I would suggest stainless steel with a floating lid that you can seal tightly - or a collection of glass carboys.

Thank you for your reply. This is for fermentation only, possibly through clearing. For aging it will go into oak, or directly to a bottle to age.

Mark

Mark, When you say fermentation only, you've said a mouthfull. Paul's answer was shorthand... what he was referring to was primary fermentation. Your answer indicated you are talking about both primary and secondary fermentation. During primary fermentation, there is enough CO2 being given off to protect the fermenting must. This typically covers down to about 7-9 deg Brix, S.G. about 1.03 or so. Below that, the rate of CO2 being given off gets slow enough that it doesn't fully protect the must.

Once you reach this point, you are in secondary fermentation, and you need to protect the slowly fermenting must by using either an airlocked carboy or other closed container. The fermentor in the link you showed, has such an airlock, so it will work through secondary fermentation.

When you do your first racking (clearing), then you will need to transfer the wine to an airlocked carboy or other container in which you can minimize the headspace (empty volume).

Gene

Thanks Gene,

So the fermenter in the link is fine through secondary fermentation. If I minimize space at the top will it also be OK for clearing, or should I still go to multiple smaller Carboys. I do understand that glass would be easier to tell when it is clear, but is the carboy shape necessary?

Mark

No, the shape just lets you get air away from the wine by filling it up.

There is another way to go here. Sounds like you want to do roughly 14 gallon batches. They sell 15 gallon glass 'demijohns' around here for around $35 to $50 and they can have have a stainless spigot too. They look like a fiasco, (that old wine bottle with wicker wrapped around it). I'm sure it's got a lot of weight to it, but it seems to fit your requirements. The new ones have a plastic covering instead of cane like the really old ones had.

I'd personally go into carboys or completely full stainless steel kegs at the first clearing (racking off gross lees) step. The shape of the carboys is ideal, the narrow neck is quite an advantage for minimizing headspace.... and you want to keep that to a minimum to not use up your sulfite oxidation protection. That is, unless your goal is to make sherry, lolol.

Being able to see the wine through the container is also an advantage if you want to know how soon is the soonest you should rack the wine. I've done it both ways, SS beer kegs and carboys... the beer kegs work fine, too, but you have to guess about when the wine is ready to rack, so you can't be in a hurry to get the wine to bottles (not being in a hurry is a good thing, gives the wine time to mature). After a couple of times, you get to know the 'rule of thumb' timing for between racking for each type of wine you are making. Or you can go by calendar... second racking in late December or early January, just in time to get started with cold stabilization.

BTW, some of us like to leave some of our wines on the fine lees awhile, called sur lies aging. It does change the flavor of the wine, so depending on the style of wine you are making, you choose whether to do sur lies or not.

Gene

Good point. Most of the time I go into glass at a SG of less than 1.0 and it has not seemed to matter but I guess it could if left long enough. (I make mostly reds whites would be more sensitive) If transferring while at a higher SG, I would go to glass OR if I had the big bucks, a stainless steel container with a floating lid would be my choice. Failing that, a container that had an opening for bung and airlock and use of Argon or Nitrogen.

I have been using 55 gal soft drink syrup barrels ($15 apiece), and I bought a case of food grade plastic bags big enough to line the barrels. This has worked very nicely , as you can put around 35 gals of must in the barrel, twist the top around a 1" plastic hose and tie it and put the hose end in a bucket of water and you have an airtight primary. There is room in the bag for the cap to float, and while it is an extra nuisance opening it to punch down etc, it isn't worse than any other system I've seen, and when you get into the later stages of extended maceration where you want to keep it airtight, I just put some argon in, take the hose out and tie it securely. Over-all it makes for a nice clean system, and when I press, I just throw the first bag away and put the wine in another plastic bag with some argon and let it settle a couple weeks before putting it into a barrel. I have done this with smaller bags in 15 gal barrels as well, and it seems to work fine.

Darwin, Pretty darn elegant setup. Would pressing on the bag be sufficient to immerse cap and keep it wet, instead of opening the bag and punch-down? My guess is that for first two days, you'd want to open to give the yeast enough oxygen during the growth phase, but after that, in the anaerobic alcohol producing stage ..... This method could make for very fruity wine style.

Now, if you want to make NZ style sauvignon blanc (reductive fermentation limiting the yeast's access to oxygen), you'd never open the bag till you transfer to secondary.

And have you used this method with high-foaming yeasts? If so, how full do you fill your bags in order to leave room for the foaming? More or less than for open top fermentor?

Gene

"gene" wrote in message news:8Jwoh.60849$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr14.news.prodigy.net...

As you get into the extended maceration, I just slosh it around and punch the bag down.You don't have to open them. The bags (6 mil) probably hold 60 or 70 gals, and fold down over the sides of the barrel. I do like to scoop the cap off and dump it into a new barrel every day for about the first 2 or

Where do you get your bags?

Darw> >

punch-down?

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