full month in primary?

Unless you have an exceptionally cool cellar I wouldn't recommend that.

If you insist, do _one_ batch in an airlocked carboy, with _plenty_ of headspace (or better still, split it between two carboys). Fill the airlock with glycerine so it won't dry out. Have a nice trip, and hope for the best.

Bon voyage!

Tom S

I agree with Tom. Primaries are notorious for not sealing well, even if they have what seems like a tight lid.

You could start them in glass secondaries under airlocks and they would be pretty much okay. Just do not fill them more that 2/3's full or you may come back to a mess and ruined wine. Be sure to aerate them good when you start them.

Ray

I'm not seeing what the difference would be with the heat, though. I'm thinking of the ground floor of the house.

I have two seven gallon carboys and an odd fermenting bucket. I excpect to get a few more of these in the fall--grape juice for winemaking is sold in them locally. It has a rubber airlock built in (I'd never heard of such a thing, but it's a small gasket, apparently with a flap.

It's not the bubbling over that I'm concerned about, but the staying in contact with the gunk that falls out during fermentation.

hawk

Seriously, wait till you get back before you start the wine. You are playing with oxidation bigtime leaving it in a container with lot of headspace.

Clearly not in the carboys--the volume of CO2 simply floods the chamber. I don't know how one-way the airlock in the bucket is, though. In my old homebrew buckets, this wouldn't have been an issue (but a month of trub could be), but they had heavy-duty seals and used regular airlocks.

I'm really hoping, thought, that someone can enlighten me about sitting on it's own byproduct for a month . . .

hawk

Ya, I make beer and all the information out there says not to go longer than a month or so in the primary because the yeast will have no sugar to eat and start eating itself causing 'rubbery' flavors.

Can the same be said for wine?

You are right, in secondary under an airlock, head space is no problem during fermentation. It only becomes a problem if you open the carboy after fermentation slows down.

Cox in "From Vines to Wines" recommends keeping red wine in contact with the skins for 20 to 30 days by keeping a layer of CO2 on top when making red wines. He says it gets the maximum color and flavor extraction.

When making melomels, it is often recommended that you ferment the honey in primary and then add the fruit during secondary so the CO2 will not blow the fruit essence away. When doing this you may have contact with the fruit for

Just some comments.

You are definitely going outside normally accepted practice and this is not necessarily good but winemaking is a forgiving process and it will probably turn out very nice anyway. You might even like the results better. Sounds like you really want to do this so do it and let us know how it turns out.

Ray

I'll be too far away :)

Hmm, then it must be able to handle the exposure to fermentatio byproducts.

I've seen the same for fruit beers. Since I dislike the taste of fermented honey, I've done a single mead, many years ago.

But am I far away if 30 days with skin is already recommended? Or is there a racking with addition of the skins to the secondary in that.

It's no so much that I want to *do* this, but that I want to have enough completed simple kits that I can wait for juices & better kits to ferment :)

thanks

hawk

I also agree that the only way to do this would be in an airlocked carboy. If one of your kits is a white you can chuck the EC-1118 yeast that probably came with the kit and subsitute Lalvin D-47. It is very low foaming and I regularily start my whites right in the carboy but hold back 1 or 2 liters of water. I probably don't even need to do that but I find I end up adding it back during top ups.

In a cool place or even not that cool of a location it will not foam over and something like a chardonnay could easily sit on the lees for a month. If it's a cool fermentation then it may not even be finished in a month.

The one other item would be to ensure you splash the water and concentrate into the carboy and stir heavily to ensure that there is enough dissolved oxygen for the initial reproduction phase of the yeast. If I remember correctly a couple of sources have said that the amount of dissolved oxygen is all the yeast will really get or need. I assume that the air to must contact is not really enough to provide much further oxygen.

Don

and how would you feel sitting on your own byproduct for a month.

Dr. Evans, The issue of leaving the wine on it's own Lees isn't really what I would be worrying about. This actually is a common wine making practice called Sur Lee aging. This process as you may know is generally a stylistic decision and often used in specific wines such as Chardonnay to give a "silkier" or "creamy" mouth feel. The danger is in not stirring and monitoring the Lees to see if they are becoming reductive (rotting and breaking down), or having a hydrogen sulphide problem developing that you are not there to intercept. I have used sur lee aging in the past, but I have always been there to monitor them. The other point of contention you may hear is the different views of what are "lees" and "gross lees". My loose non-professional view is that gross lees contains grape matter and other particals and lees are mainly just dead yeast and much less harmful. There are other more versed winemakers here, but I recommend caution in leaving your wine unchecked for a month. HTH John Dixon