started my wine kit saturday

Let me guess (since you didn't say) step two is something like rack the wine down into a smaller container. Regardless of how insignificant that step may seem the question is how much of a chance do you want to take on the money you spent for the kit? Some additional questions come to mind, like, is the winshop owner willing to cover the loss if the wine goes bad? Did the kit manufacturer put in step two just to give you something to do? Is there any reason to NOT do step two? Why take chances on your first venture into making wine?

Hmmm, lemme guess something else. You don't have the smaller carboy and the shop owner doesn't have one to sell you at the moment... Am I close? :)

I'm not trying to be sarcastic, honest. If you've got the gear, do the step. If you ain't got the gear, get it. If he don't got it, go somewhere else. From the day you started you've got at least two, proably three weeks.

I don't really know about your kit (which you didn't name), but I'm betting that step two (which you didn't describe) is to get the must off the largest part of the lees. Doing that reduces the chance of imparting strange flavors into the wine from all those dead yeasty critters that have sunk to the bottom of the fermenter. Especially if the step says something like leave most of the crud behind.

Ummm.... What's Step 2?

yeah, step two is to rack the wine into the carboy with a big airspace, which is was their concern. the instructions make it sound like i need a 2nd carboy, which they did have, but suggested that i would not need as they said i should skip step two. If i was them I woulda sold me 1 of everything inthe store(they kept telling me "No, you really dont need one of those")

oh, I for got to say(thought i did) Wineexpert Isalnd mist peach apricot chardonay.

after re-reading(and re--reading) the instructions, I think i'll stick to the instructions rather than their recommendations.

When you do this first racking, you want to carry over a large fraction of the yeast, but not heavy gunk. If you don't take enough of the yeast (and dead yeast hulls), you risk getting a stuck fermentation in step 2 (secondary fermentation in the carboy).

Without some dead yeast hulls (or other light solids) in step 2, the active yeast tend to settle to the bottom. That's not what you want; you want the active yeast to have some solids to attach to so they'll stay suspended throughout the fermenting must.

I've never done a Winexpert kit. Do they suggest doing step one in an open top container? Or do they suggest doing step one in a carboy?

If you did step one in an open top fermenter, I highly recommend using the carboy with an airlock for step 2. This will help protect the wine from oxidizing (due to the intrusion of oxygen from the outside air) as the fermentation slows down.

If you did step one in a carboy, then just putting an airlock onto the carboy as the fermentation slows down might would be enough to protect the wine from oxidation. If I'm guessing correctly, this might be what the wineshop owner was talking about.

Gene

Casey gives good counsel to follow the kit instructions, at least the first time you do the kit. The second time around is the time to impart your own winemaking style by not exactly following their recipe. Your version might be better or it might be worse. But at least then you'll know how the kit manufacturer intended it to be.

I do have one possible difference of opinion regarding dead yeast cell flavors. Maybe I've overlooked something, but I'd be surprised if the wine will pick up noticeable flavor from the dead yeast cells during the

2-4 weeks typical of secondary fermentation. Getting the wine off the fine lees, in my experience, is only important after the wine has fermented to dryness (if you don't want a sur lies aging style to add the yeast notes during bulk aging).

I'd agree that sur lies aging would seem odd for a light, fruity wine such as Wineexpert Island Mist. My white wine experiments with the sur lies aging method needed extended fine lees (dead yeast cells) contact of at least 3 months before I was able to notice the yeast notes. And in that case, I wanted the yeast notes to add complexity to my wine.

Gene

According to the wine kits that I have (two of them made by the same company as tater is using, Step 2 is racking it off from the primary fermenter into the secondary.

Abby

oh bye the way, took a sample today. SG of 1.030 (from 1.052) and definetly a wine like taste, compared to saturdays sample tasting like juice.

step 2 is supposed to start around 1.010 or less