Wine Emergency!!

Sure they will wait. Keep the must cool .. take some zip-lock bags, sanitize them, fill them with ice, and suspend them in the must. Plastic milk jugs or

2-liter soda bottles work well also, but you have to have them filled and frozen in advance and have additional ones you can freeze to exchange out. Try to keep the must at 50 degrees F or below if you can. Of course keep it covered so that no bugs can get in.

If you're making a red wine, what you're doing is a "cold soak." This is a method often used to extract color and fruity flavors/aromas from the skins without extracting too much tannin (tannin becomes soluable only when there's alcohol present during the fermentation).

In fact, you may want to continue your cold soak for a couple more days, since you've begun. Then pitch your yeast, and do a shortened fermentation -- say 3 days or until you hit zero Brix on the hydrometer.

Jon

Normally you wait 24 hours for the sulfites to do their magic and then disappate. I can't imagine another 12 hours or so, being an issue.

Robert

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Weez wrote:

More like 24hrs. but I guess since you're not worried about 12 hours, 24 won't too much worse! Thanks! Louise:o)

And once you get the yeast in don't forget to punch down the cap when it forms. That'll give you more extraction of color as well.

Robert

---------------------- J> Sure they will wait. Keep the must cool .. take some zip-lock bags, sanitize

Jon, Just a question, why would you do a shortened fermentation after the cold soak? Thanks, Rus