I have a couple of probably quite basic winemaking questions that I've been unable to find satisfactory answers for on the web or by using google groups. I've lurked for a couple of weeks and you all seem like nice fellows, so here goes:
Firstly, I'm a little unsure of exactly how to go about racking wine. I know the process involves syphoning the good stuff from the crap stuff sand sediment at the bottom of the bucket or DJ, but I'd appreciate a little more specifics on the matter. For example, is it okay to draw a little of the sediment through the hose during racking, or is it worth leaving a little of the wine on the sediment in order to prevent this. Also, is it okay to tip the DJ towards the end of the process to get the most juice out, or will this just swill the sediment around?
WRT the tomato wine in the subject line, I started making this on sunday according to the recipe for red tomato wine on jack keller's site. Until I added the yeast, the solution happily separated into sediment and the watery juice stuff. Now, three days after adding the yeast (which seems to be doing it's thing judging by the bubbles and the smell), the liquid is a constant cloudy orange colour. Is this a good or bad sign?
Is it okay to taste the wine when I rack it into a secondary? I appreciate I might do this by accident when starting the siphoning, but is it a good idea to taste it and if so, is there a way to tell if all is going well? I don't particularly want to nurse it through months of clearing if it's destined to be disgusting from the outset. ;o)
Although one _can_ syphon with only a length of tubing, it is better to use a "racking cane" with some sort of "bucket clip". The racking cane is a piece of plastic or stainless-steel tubing with a device on the end which helps prevent the sediment from being pulled upward. You can purchase one at your local homebrew shop. The bucket clip holds the racking cane at some level above the sediment and prevents it from moving about and disturbing the sediment. Another helpful, albeit optional, device is an inline nylon tap.
-Remove the lid/airlock/bung/screwcap/etc. from the bucket, carboy, or demijohn from which you are racking
-Using a turkey baster, draw a small sample from the vessel, and taste the wine. Make of note of its characteristics, and decide if it needs any amendments at this time.
-Lift the vessel onto an inverted five gallon bucket atop a table. [Larger vessels should just be placed on tabletop.] Place a magazine or telephone book under the rear end of the vessel, so that it is sitting on an angle. Be careful not to disturb the sediment, and wait for any you have disturbed to settle before racking.
-All the following should be thoroughly washed, rinsed, and sterilized before use!
-Affix a 6' piece of clear plastic tubing to the racking cane. [Optionally, affix the tap to the other end, and affix an 8" length of plastic tubing to it]
-Place the receiving vessel on the table top. [Note, for larger vessels, place the receiving vessel on floor, and the sending vessel on table top.]
-Add (1 crushed campden tablet) or (1 tsp. 10% K2S2O5 solution) per gallon to the receiving vessel. Add oak chips (using a funnel) if so desired.
-Place the racking cane 1/2 way into the sending vessel on the lower side, and fix it in place with the "bucket clip". Be very careful not to disturb the sediment.
-Rinse your mouth thoroughly, preferably with vodka.
-Place a bin/bucket of hot water where it can be easily reached
-[Open the valve, and] suck on the end of the tubing until you get a mouthful of wine. Close the valve or pinch the tubing (by folding it over on itself), and rinse the end that was in your mouth in the hot water.
-Place the end of the tubing well into the receiving vessel and open the valve (or unpinch the tubing)
-As the liquid flows through the clear plastic tubing, make note of how clear it appears, and what type of fining is required.
-Gently, so as to not disturb the sediment, push the racking can downward, until it is just above the sediment. You do NOT wish to draw any of the sediment into the syphon tubing if you can avoid it.
-When the syphoning is ended, gently remove the racking can, and hold it upwards, so the last bit flows into the receiving vessel.
-Remove the racking assembly and place both ends in the hot water bin, to keep them clean for the next vessel you are racking.
The remaining liquid (and sediment) may be discarded, used for cooking wine, or recovered by filtering or centrifuging, as you wish. I set up a few jars with funnels with coffee filters in them, and pour the liquid through them. Depending on the appearance of the filtered wine, I either use it to top up, for cooking, or drink it as my reward for a hard day's racking. In a recent thread, it was suggested that the liquid could be recovered by placing it in
2-litre plastic containers, and centrifuging it in a washing machine (using the spin cycle).
This is much easier (especially after a few times) to do, than it might appear in writing.
I've never made a tomato wine, but it sounds like that I would expect.
It is not only ok to taste the wine at this stage, but mandatory. The only reason that it isn't one of the 10 Commandments is that G-d thought it to be obvious. :)
When tasting, you want to determine if their are any off flavours that need to be corrected, whether the acidity needs correction, whether more oaking is desired, etc.
I'm a reasonably experienced tropical fish keeper so siphoning is something I'm pretty adept at now. However, I'll try and source a racking cane from my local shop. As soon as you mentioned it I remembered that my dad always had one of them in one of the kitchen drawers, never thought to ask what it was!
I'm working on my first wine from a kit, and the kit said to take SG readings every day. Now some people would say that it is alright to poor the wine back into the primary, some would say that you are insane to do that. I go with the people that say never to do that because I will have introduced a few new things into the wine (don't want to risk that) but I do it this way mostly because i have to dispose of the wine, and in the method of disposal i use I also get another testing in. Taste. But it is a good idea to get some equipment for doing this, a turkey baster would work, and a wine theif works very well.
Now many people that i have read about recomend not taking many tests, and next time i'm only planing a handfull of tests, one at mixing, then two when i think fermentation is done. Last time I started secondary with a reading of ~ .990. well, i hope that your yeast were prosporus and happy.
Mark "Q" Tanner
hammerstein wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
quakeholio scribed upon the newsgroup scroll news:Xns94244CE4CDE28Quakeholio999yahooco@207.217.77.205:
As far as kits go, there's some "wiggle room" on all the instructions except the ones about sanitation. Cleanliness is paramount. As far as SG readings go, I get one when starting, and one each time I rack. Other than that, I don't bother. So far, they've all been fine.
Sounds like your yeast is happily doing exactly what it is suppose to do. It is fermenting away and making CO2. As the CO2 bubbles rise they affix to solids and carry them to the top which keeps the must stirred up. Hence we say that when a liquid is churning, "it is fermenting". This is a good thing.
Racking cane. Cheap and necessary for racking. Mandatory for bottling. Also pick up a bottling cane which goes on the other end of the hose. When you press it down it lets wine into the bottle and when you lift it up it stops flowing. They are cheap and really help.
Tasting - Oh Yessss. As stated above, this is necessary for determining when you have off flavors. But it is also necessary for learning what the must tastes like at different times so you can judge not only when you have off tastes but what the wine will taste like. Many wines have peculiar or harsh tastes at various stages. With experience, you will recognise these as good things. Besides it is a pleasant part of wine making.
There is another aspect of tasting. As you are working with your fermenting wine, you should always open a bottle of wine from a previous year. This give you someting to compare with and it makes the job go so much better.
As far as not nursing it along if it is going to be disgusting, I have made many batches over the last 25 years. Some tasted off at various stages and I was sure they were destined to be used as draino. But almost all pulled through. Some have turned out fabulously. It tastes off, give it more time. I have only had to really throw out maybe 3 batches over all those years. One batch of dewberry I made in 97 I let air get to and ruined it. I was so disgusted with myself that I put it back in a closet and left it there for years. Last year I finally got it out to toss it as I needed the carboy. Basic rule, taste first. So I tasted it to see how bad it was and ... wait a minute! I sweetened it, fortified it, and now have a Sherry that I am very proud of. I named it "Wrong Turn Dewberry Sherry".
In regards to your tomato wine, you have something to look forward to!
I made a batch a year ago and it is not bad. It started out with brilliant red with pulp, but the pulp quickly fell out of solution taking with it all of the red color. The wine its self is a nice shade of yellow, has a slight hint of real tomato flavor that goes well with spaghetti! Don't worry about it tasting like alcoholic ketchup, just a hint of real tomato. The original flavor seemed to hold up much better than a lot other things that I have made wine form.
This is my first batch of any sort of homemade wine ever. Although I thought it a bit amitious as a first go, the tomatoes were grown by my dad and he had more than enough spare at the end of the season so I decided to give it a bash.
I recently made a kit wine, but I think the pleasure for me in an endeavor like this is the creation process, not the "having a bottle bubbling in a cupboard" process. I guess this is pretty much the same for everyone here though.
I noticed this morning that the fizz when stirring the must has subsided quite a bit from yesterday. Is this a sign that the yeast is settling down and maybe in a day or two I should transfer to a secondary for the longer fermenting-out and clearing process?
I just moved into a new house, and I have a lot more room for this sort of thing now.....AND the homemade wine shop is just around the corner. I think it's destiny ;o)
I'm not sure what you use for tubing, but being the cheapskate I am, I bought clear tubing from a hardware store. 3/8" I.D. got a cheap turkey baster for pulling wine samples. As it turns out, the end of the baster is just the right size to press against the end of the tubing to provide suction. that way there is no bacteria from my mouth getting on the end of the tubing that will be in the wine. I don't know if this really matters or not, but it can't hurt.
So, I stick the end of the 6 foot tube in the wine I want to rack from. I put the other container on the table next to it. I then hold the end of the tube and make sure the loop in the tubing hangs lower than the bottom of the full container. (the lower the better). I press the turkey baster against the end, give it a good suck with the baster, and watch as the wine comes up over the "hill" and into the bottom of the loop. NOTE: keep the end in your hand higher than the top of the wine!!! otherwise you will have a mess. At this point, I have a tube in my hand, and the wine is almost to the end of the tube. Put the new container over the end of the tube (inverted) then I turn it over, and lower it. as soon as it is under the level of the full container, the weight of the wine in the tube will push out the remaining air, and you start racking. Keep controll of the end of the "in" side of the tubing. you don't want it to get into the lees at the bottom. Some people say to start at the top, and then follow the level of wine down the carboy. My self, I just make sure the end stays in the wine and out of the lees. When it gets to the point that you are either sucking lees, or quiting, quit. I keep the end of the tube right against the glass. that way I can see when it starts picking up lees. watch closely, they will almost do a upside-down tornado into the end of the tube.
Then I ran the remains though a coffee filter and had miminum sediment in the "good" wine.
I have heard (though havn't done it myself) that tiling on the side a bit is okay.
email: dallyn_spam at yahoo dot com please respond in this NG so others can share your wisdom as well!
The clear tubing at the hardware store is the same as the (more expensive) "food-grade" tubing sold at the local and internet homebrew shoppes -- except the tubing at the hardware store has the size stamped on the outside, and the "food-grade" tubing does not. The ink washes off, and you should do so before using it. Or not. I doubt it is toxic in such small amounts.
Turkey baster works as good as (or better than) a "wine thief".
Great idea! (The sulphite and alcohol will probably kill any oral bacteria, but why take chances?)
Dave, if you buy a $2 racking cane, there is a cap on one end, so that the fluid intake is from above, through the top of the cap, rather than from the bottom of the carboy. This makes avoiding picking up any lees much easier. It's really worth the small investment.
DrinksForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.