Not sure about racking

Hi R-D-C

The reason for racking is to eliminate sediment. Sediment is, early on, parts of grapes, yeast, and material other than grapes. Later in the process there are other compounds that will drop out including potassium bitartrate that will precipitate when you cold stabilize. Basically you want to rack as little as possible so as to not expose your wine or mead to oxygen but enough to get rid of all the other stuff so your product is clear. I generally rack three times: First a couple of days after pressing the grapes to get the wine off the gross lees, second time after cold stabilisation, and a third time prior to bottling. This year if the whites that are clear enough after the second racking I will try bottling from the container rather than rack then bottle so as to avoid oxidation.

No question is stupid. Many answers are.

Regards

Frank

Not a stupid question, but it depends a lot on your winemaking style and whether or not it is a red wine.

As far as meads, cysers, country and kit wines go I have no advice to offer. I don't make any of them.

For red wines I find it best to press the wine into a tank and let it settle at least a couple of hours, then rack into barrel - leaving behind all the heavy lees, which can be further settled to reclaim more wine. The idea is to quarrantine the lees fraction until you can give it a clean bill of health, because that's where H2S problems often arise.

For big, barrel fermented whites I don't rack at all until just before bottling. I get the juice from the press as well clarified as possible, rack that into barrels and ferment dry with concurrent ML. I stir the lees every few days as the wine approaches dryness and until ML is finished, then maybe every six or eight weeks after sulfiting, topping and bunging tight. When it's getting close to bottling time I let the wine settle for a couple of months before racking to a tank for fining and cold stabilization.

If I were doing a crisp, fruity, non-ML white I'd rack as soon as the primary is finished, and probably again in a couple of months after the wine has settled pretty clear.

Tom S

I only do country wines, so not sure about grape wines (see Tom's post). I generally do my first racking about 2 months after transferring from the must bucket, without any stirring of the lees. After that every 2-3 months, gently stirring every couple of weeks until sediment stops dropping. Then I tend to finish it and leave it until bottling.

What do you do when aging a wine? I was under the impression that after it was completely clear it was still a good idea to leave it in the demijohn for a period. Would you just leave it alone for that period; would you need to add further campden tablets?

This is only my 4th year making wine, so I'm still working on building up my wine cellar. Depending on the wine, some would think 7 months of bulk aging is too young to bottle, but I will age longer once I have enough wine set aside. Bulk aging and bottle aging are both part of aging a wine. Bulk aging is just storing your wine in the demijohn, making sure the wine is topped up, sulfited with campden tablets, and that you have enough water in your airlock so no nasties get in there. Once you bottle, there can be additional aging done, by just leaving the bottles in a dark cool place and NOT drinking it. That's the hard part.... Do you know about Jack Kellers's homemade wine site? Darlene

Racking is important for the obvious clarification reason but it also helps tremendously with red wines' color stability and removal of "reduced" odors when done with aeration. I avoid air contact with my white wines when racking and I rack them usually 3 times. To do this I use Argon to blanket the receiving container and the container being emptied. For red wines, I like to rack the first 3-4 times with aeration by trickling the wine down the side of the new carboy. There may be an additional 2-3 rackings after these first ones until the wine is brilliant.

CHEERS!!

Aaron

You're referring to bulk aging. You need to set the correct level of free SO2 in the wine, but if it's topped up and bunged tight there's no place for the SO2 to go, so you can pretty much leave it alone until you're ready to bottle.

Tom S

You're referring to sur lie aging, but that's generally done on the _gross_ lees - not fine lees - and usually only in white wines, although some winemakers are experimenting with going into barrel "dirty" with reds - often straight from the press - a practice I don't advocate because of the considerable risk/reward ratio.

Tom S

Hi Darlene

I would love to hear about your oregano wine. Is it drinkable or do you use it mainly for cooking, and if so how do you use it ? I made a batch of garlic wine and coffee wine for cooking and I can't wait to use them. I'd like to know about other types of wine that are great for cooking.

Marc Québec

Marc, I made a pepper wine which I'm still using for cooking, but others make it to drink. The pepper wine just adds a certain something extra to any dish like chili, spaghetti, lasagna, etc. I guess I'm looking at using the oregano wine basically for cooking. I have an oregano plant "gone wild" in my garden (there was so much of it I had to cut it back), so that's why I made it. It is still bulk aging, so I have not tried it. I decided to keep it dry. I will bottle in January, so I usually have a glass leftover to try - will let you know how drinkable it is then. Let me know about the garlic wine & coffee wine. I'm sure others will chime in on the cooking possibilities. Darlene Wisconsin

I've been making wine since 1977 and I =never= rack anything that is still fermenting; that completely defeats the purpose of racking which is the elimination of sediment. IMO.

I was intending to leave the wine under an airlock, rather than bunged up tight.

Is this wrong?

I have heard of meads fermenting for over a year. This not a problem?

Sure will do. My wife, who is a cordon bleu, can't wait to use those wine for cooking. My coffee wine is about a year old and we're about to try it very soon. She has many great ideas for it, mainly for pastries and desserts, yum. My garlic wine is only a month and a half old but I think it'll be interesting. I might add that I have no idea of it's alcool content because I didn't want to use my my equipment to measure it. I didn't want to go throught the trouble of getting rid of the odour, well let's just say I didn't want to take any chance. The pail I used for primary fermentation is still smelling like garlic despite a couple of washing. I guess it's about 12 % :)

I had a chance to make oregano wine this year but I changed my mind because at about the same time, i bought about 40 lbs of apples and I made many of Jack's apple recipes such as the plain medium bodied apple cider, the spiced apple wine and an apple-banana-fig-parsnip sherry. I sure will try the oregano wine next year since we have a friend who has a "gone wild" plant and we also have a very nice plant in our garden.

Marc Québec

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How much garlic did it take to make the garlic wine? Do you have a recipe? Darlene Wisconsin

I used the recipe on Jack's site. 15 clusters of regular garlic and a pound of golden raisins. The wine has a greenish colour. The wort turned green (more like turquoise than plain green) the following morning after I chopped the garlic, surely oxidized. My wife worries that it might be caused by the green indigest sprouts that might have been in some of the garlic and that it could render the wine indigest as well. I'm not sure about that at all, we'll see.

Marc

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marc,

I always cut out the green sprout (germ) when I cook or cruch the garlic, as it does tend to taste off (bitter or rootier?) but maybe that's just if it is saute'd and it burns quicker? I hope it works out well for you.

greg