So far so good with my crab apple wine. The secondary is finishing the fermentation. There is a lot of pulp (I think) settling in the bottom 1/4 of the carboy. I may have squeezed the apples too hard before racking off the primary.
Question: How do I separate the wine from this pulp when it's time to rack again? Can I rack most of the wine and pour the rest through coffee filters for example? Any other suggestions?
TIA
Squeezing them "too hard" might leave you with some bitter tannins, but it's unlikely to cause "excess" pulp. Apple wine will drop several inches of sediment after the press. This is normal. Stop worrying. It's settling!
Separating the wine from the "pulp" (i.e. sediment) is the primary reason for racking. Look at the response I just posted in the "tomato wine question" thread as to how to rack the wine off the sediment and recover most of the remaining liquid.
I would do your best to rack the good wine off the pulp (which should've settle to the bottom). Coffee filters will clog up pretty quick - I've tried that among other things, but I worry about exposing the wine to all that air. Now this has worked for me, but it may not be to everyone's liking. I pour the pulp into a clear container, cover with plastic & rubberband, and put it in the fridge. After a few days the heavier gunk seems to fall to the bottom and leaves a clear liquid on top. When it seems like the amount of clear wine is staying the same, I just rack the clear liquid off. There is a method I've heard of about racking to a soda bottle and putting it in your washing machine to spin, but I have a front loader, not a top-loader. Good-luck. Darlene
Darlene, I think he's talking about a wine that is just finishing fermenting. It's way to early to rack. He should wait about a month after it stops fermenting completely, when it should be fairly clear. If he racks now, he will have to do it again in a few days, and again in a few more, exposing the wine to far too much air. Furthermore, because the "pulp" (i.e. sediment) hasn't had time to settle, their will be much more liquid to filter or discard.
Like any filters, coffee filters are best used on a wine that is almost clear already. The type of sediment that occurs right after fermentation ends will clog a filter immediately.
That is a good method as well. It doesn't always work, but then neither does filtering.
You can do the same with a front loader. It is centrifugal force, not gravity that separates the wine from the solids. After centrifuging, set the bottle upright, and the compacted solids will sink to the bottom --- just as they do when removed from an upright.
Next time look at the primary before you do anything.
It's time to rack off the primary when the mush/yeast/solids fall to the bottom. If it looks murky stir well and let sit a day. The primary fermentation is going until those inches of lees drop--this can be a week or it can be 3 weeks.
The you don't waste the space in the secondary. In fact, some people don't squeeze apples at all--they just chop them coarsely, ferment to the clear state, and rack off the best apple wine of all.
Irene
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