I'm making my first wine from actual grapes (Concord) from my garden. They have been in the primary for 6 days, the s.g. is 1.025, and the color of the must is fairly dark. The nylon bag now contains only seeds and skins. I don't want to get too much tannin so I want to rack to a carboy soon. When using concentrates, the lees were always very minimal. But this time, with actual grapes, the lees (mostly pulp?) are about 30% of the total volume of must. Is this normal? Should I transfer some or all of the lees to the carboy (probably has a lot of the yeast as well). Will the lees "compact" with time or will I just have to discard this 30% eventually? Any help, comments, opinions, etc would be very very welcome!
- posted
18 years ago