Topping up the carboy

You're right . I've made wine in 5 gallon carboys that were only half full . I keep it air locked and when I rack I try to run it down the side of the new carboy rather than have the wine splash around a lot . There's a lot of O2 to displace and shocking the daylights out of the yeast won't help .

Seems to me that something that is relatively straight forward and fun is too often looked at as having to be technical and ever so precise .

Obviously you need to follow the rules but for me, cleanliness is the biggy . Keep it clean and the rest is no big deal .

I agree. Thanks. I figure, as long as the final product is good then there's no need to get too technical. This stuff is fun, right? :)

You do not need to top up while it is fermenting as CO2 is being released and it will displace the O2 as you say. But then you should not be raking are fooling around with the wine while it is fermenting. Just let it go. After it quits fermenting you need to rack it off the lees and that is when you need to top up. There will be some CO2 still coming off for a while but it is best to top up. You never top up to the top leaving no air in the carboy. If you do, temperature changes will cause the airlock to blow or wine will come out through the airlock. Toping up means within 1.5 to 2 inches of the bung in a 5 or 6.5 gal. carboy.

this stuff is not technical, it is just procedural. Things you need to learn.

Ray

I would agree with Ray but I top to within 1/2 " when the wine is still. I would _never_ leave a still wine in a half full carboy, even for a day FWIW.

As he mentioned, most of this is procedural. It's not rocket science, wine makes itself. All the techno-geeky stuff I do does not make a bad wine good; it keeps me from ruining a good wine.

Blending on the other hand is an art, I'm better at it now than I used to be and ten years from now I hope to be even better. You can measure all you want but taste is everything. The measurements only get you so far; they keep you from making a significant error in judgment.

Joe

On blending, I find my bst results are actually done by intuition, just be tasting and throwig things together. The practical problem I seem to have with blending tests is that the wine ends up tasting differently when the choesen blend is aged, and I might not like the blend then as I did when I did the test. I guess I could age the blended samples before making the decision but on smaller batches that just seem a lot of effort.

Pp

Joe Sallustio wrote:

I left a 3/4 full carboy of Gewurtz in the fridge to drop out the tartrate crystals in the fridge for one week. It was inerted with CO2 nearly every day.

It spoiled. I tossed 4 gallons.

I'm going to be investing in marbles or something .... any suggestions?

I'd guess that your spoilage problem was caused by (1) insufficient sulfite and (2) the CO2 dissolving in the wine and sucking air in right behind it. Also, you may have insufficiently purged the air with CO2. It takes a lot more gas than you think to push out all the air, which is what you must do for inert gas to be effective. A little squirt won't do it; to push the air out a gallon of headspace takes ~7 gallons of gas. There is no such thing as the so-called "blanketing effect" of a heavier gas.

Tom S

I've found it easier & neater (& cheaper) to re bottle a partially filled jug or carboy into several smaller bottles. Keep an eye out for sizes like 3 liters, 1/2 gal., pint, etc. Soon you'll be able to match up your partial batches to some combination of filled bottles, and maybe have a glass left over for "quality control".

I use 6, 5, 3, 2, & 1 gal bottles, as well as 4, 3, 1.5 liters and standard & split wine bottles. A visit to a recycling center can provide a good selection of the smaller sizes.

Closures for the bottles can be as simple as a folded piece of Saran & a rubber band.