Stopping wine at one week

Bertie Doe · 2010-03-24T16:30:00+00:00

In the past I've made wine from kit-concentrates and also country wines from fruit. Last August the local (uk) s/market were doing deals on breakfast juices, so I bought a gallon of white grape juice (not a concentrate, but pasteurised).The sg was 1066, bubble trap finished on day 7, cleared day 10, bottled day 14. Nice and clear, goodish quality table wine, slight effervescence, but boy was it dry!!Next attempt was with a gallon of white and also red. The red has not been pasteurised, but has a good deep colour, so must have been left some time on the skins, before extraction - overcome the extreme dryness, I added 1.5lbs sugar per gallon. Only problem, instead of taking a week to stop, it's taken 6 weeks, it's only marginally drier and still has an effervescence.Any ideas on how to stop the wine earlier and thus leave some sugar in solution, but avoid a secondary?I didn't have this problem with kits, but the DIY method seems a lot tastier and is a hell of a lot cheaper. TIA.Bertie

Mar 24, 2010 24 Replies

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BobF 16 years ago

It may not have restarted. That is likely residual co2 you're seeing bubble out.

I would degas before doing anything else to it.

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Bertie Doe 16 years ago

Degassing, is this done by racking? Neither wine has been racked, as I'm always a bit nervous about contamination.

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BobF 16 years ago

vigorous stirring and vacuum are the most popular methods. Racking does degas some due to the siphon action.

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Bertie Doe 16 years ago

Thanks Bob I'll give that a try. The irony is that my first batch of white, I added no sugar and it stopped after 10 days!!

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BobF 16 years ago

In my experience, every batch is unique!

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