Topping up with marbles?

KD,

Sanitized marbles work fine, and I do use them occassionally, but I'd recommend just getting a commercial wine that's similar to the one you're making and use that to top up. As you've suggested, water should be avoided since it dilutes your wine.

You're also right that this has been covered before - but don't hesitate to ask anyway. But to do a little research first, try going to Google and do an "Advanced Group Search" - put in the name of this group and search for what you're interested in.

Hope that helps,

Ed

Here's the link to FAQ

I also top up (at least on wine that's finished fermenting) with a similar bottle of wine, from past year's work or from a store. Don't need to use the whole bottle? Well, now you know what to have with dinner!

Rob

Use wine.

There was a fairly heavy discussion on this about a year or so ago and what I took from the discussion is that you don't know what is in with the glass in the marbles. If you do decide to use them, soak them in alcohol first to leach out any dangerous chemicals. Long term I think topping up with a similar wine to be preferable or to switch to smaller carboys ie. from a 23l to 19l with a couple of 750ml bottles left over to top up with.

Don

Although I agree that it's best to use wine, if marbles are available they're perfectly acceptable as long as they're clean.

Tom S

I also do this myself. It gives you an idea what you have headed your way a few months down the line. And it's yummy! :-)

Marbles will work but here are some things to think about.

First, will take more marbles than you think If you need to top up by 1 gal then you need 1.5 gal's of marbles. Stacked marbles are about 1/3 open space.

Second. I have never done it but have seen others do it. If you have any sedement drop out (which you almost always do) then it covers the marbles. This makes it impossible to rack the wine wine that is in the space between the marbles without stirring up the leas.

I recomend that you get some different size carboy's. I have a bunch of 5,

6, and 6.5 gal carboys. I also have several 3 and 2.8 carboy's. Then of course it helps to have a buch of 1's and some 1/2 gal jugs. With this variety I can generally avoid topping at all and if I need to it will be very little.

Ray

Marbles - even pebbles from the beach - as long as they're clean and sanitised will work excellently! However, as another viewer has said, try topping up with another wine or - put a little cheap brandy in there to give it some real oooommmmph!

All in favor of ooooommmpppphhhh give a low grunt!

I rarely totally contradice anyone but "pebbles from the beach" is a real bad idea. Virtually any rock has some porosity and that mean that rocks picked up on the beach, even dry rocks, will have pores that are filled with water from the beach. If soaked in your wine, diffusion will cause exchange with that fluid and infuse your wine. Glass marbles can be used, though I do not recommend them for other reasons, as they are not porous.

Then there is the fact that as some of the fluids diffuse out of the rock, some of the wine will diffuse into it. You cannot wash this off or out. So if you store the rocks for reuse, bacteria and molds can be growing inside the rocks and infect your wine when they are re-used.

And then there is the fact that many minerals in rocks disolve in acidic solutions. That is why oil companies often treat oil wells with acid to disolve some of the rock to increase flow.

Ray