# Ok wiseguys what am I trying to do



## Luc (Dec 7, 2006)

Let me see if there is someone who figures out what I am trying to do here.


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## Caplan (Dec 7, 2006)

Make a molotov cocktail?  

It could almost resemble a home harvested yeast that you've collected from a primary ferment but of course the colours are all wrong for that. I'm stumped Luc!


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## Luc (Dec 7, 2006)

Caplan said:


> Make a molotov cocktail?
> 
> It could almost resemble a home harvested yeast that you've collected from a primary ferment but of course the colours are all wrong for that. I'm stumped Luc!



Let me add that it is standing like this for more then a month now.

You may ask questions  
but I might not respond


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## smurfe (Dec 7, 2006)

OK, I will start asking questions. Has that bottle been in the freezer?

Smurfe


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## smurfe (Dec 7, 2006)

Well, you have me stumped so far.  I showed this picture to a few others that are accomplished vintners. So far, no one can figure it out. I am on a quest to figure it out though!  

Smurfe


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## smurfe (Dec 7, 2006)

The best guess I have heard from those I showed the picture to is it looks like a vinegar and oil salad dressing  

Smurfe


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## smurfe (Dec 8, 2006)

How about this. Are you making a Port?

Smurfe


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## Luc (Dec 8, 2006)

Make a molotov cocktail? 

It could almost resemble a home harvested yeast that you've collected from a primary ferment but of course the colours are all wrong for that. I'm stumped Luc!

Sorry Caplan,
Two wrongs, no cigar 




smurfe said:


> OK, I will start asking questions. Has that bottle been in the freezer? Smurfe



Nope, no good. 



smurfe said:


> The best guess I have heard from those I showed the picture to is it looks like a vinegar and oil salad dressing Smurfe



No good but getting somewhere  



smurfe said:


> How about this. Are you making a Port? Smurfe



Nope, no good Luc


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## smurfe (Dec 8, 2006)

HMM, Are you making a wine vinegar?

Smurfe


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## Caplan (Dec 8, 2006)

smurfe said:


> HMM, Are you making a wine vinegar?
> 
> Smurfe



Interesting! It DOES look like a vinegar 'mother' being fed with white wine....nice investigative skills Smurfe, We'll wait and see luc's response!


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## smurfe (Dec 8, 2006)

Caplan said:


> Interesting! It DOES look like a vinegar 'mother' being fed with white wine....nice investigative skills Smurfe, We'll wait and see luc's response!



LOL, It has me perplexed. I have probably spent a couple hours or better researching trying to figure this out.  

Smurfe


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## smurfe (Dec 8, 2006)

Are we making some type of extract? 

Smurfe


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## cpfan (Dec 9, 2006)

I think he's just trying to annoy Smurfe!!!

Steve


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## Luc (Dec 9, 2006)

smurfe said:


> Are we making some type of extract?
> 
> Smurfe



No I am not making an extract.
But I will give an other hint.

This is an experiment. I have now finished it and it was a success.
So now I am thinking to try it on a larger scale (1 gallon carboy or something like that).

And sorry CPFAN this is a serious experiment and I am not trying to annoy
smurfe. 

Have a nice weekend
Luc


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## dizzyswimmer (Dec 9, 2006)

I'm stumped !


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## smurfe (Dec 9, 2006)

Kombucha?

Smurfe


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## drouillp (Dec 10, 2006)

*hmm*

It looks like a red, yeast, olive oil stratification.


I am very curious to see what this actually is since you said it was a success!

Edit: Second look at the picture even looks like a beer, some yeast or trub layer, then a white. hmmm. interesting


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## Caplan (Dec 10, 2006)

I think you'll need to give use more clues Luc!


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## Luc (Dec 10, 2006)

Caplan said:


> I think you'll need to give use more clues Luc!



Ok because you are trying so hard, and by popular demand more clues 
 




smurfe said:


> Kombucha?
> 
> Smurfe



No Kombucha.




drouillp said:


> It looks like a red, yeast, olive oil stratification.
> 
> I am very curious to see what this actually is since you said it was a success!
> 
> Edit: Second look at the picture even looks like a beer, some yeast or trub layer, then a white. hmmm. interesting



Now drouillp your second look deceives.....

Look at my first post:
I did not say I was making something. I asked if you knew what I was trying
to do............


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## dizzyswimmer (Dec 10, 2006)

trying to remove the red color from a red wine ?????


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## smurfe (Dec 11, 2006)

I know you said you weren't making an extract but how about making olive oil, which is essence an extract.

Smurfe


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## Luc (Dec 11, 2006)

smurfe said:


> I know you said you weren't making an extract but how about making olive oil, which is essence an extract.
> 
> Smurfe



Smurfe,

Read my post carefully  

Maybe I am not trying to make anything ......... 

Keep guessing, this sure is fun (for me at last).  

Luc


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## smurfe (Dec 11, 2006)

HMMMMM, OK, well, back to the thinking cap LOL

Smurfe


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## smurfe (Dec 11, 2006)

Looks like you are trying to separate "SOMETHING". Now I just have to figure out what that something is!  

Smurfe


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## Caplan (Dec 11, 2006)

cpfan said:


> I think he's just trying to annoy Smurfe!!!
> 
> Steve


Yes! 

Luc - back to the picture. Does the fact the bottle is topped with a paper towel mean it's stored that way throughout the procedure?


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## Caplan (Dec 11, 2006)

Luc, is the clearer fluid on top a 'seal' over the dark fluid?


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## smurfe (Dec 11, 2006)

I have figured out "what you are trying to do." You are trying to see how long you can get us to stare at this picture to see if we can figure out what you are trying to do!   

Smurfe


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## Luc (Dec 12, 2006)

smurfe said:


> Looks like you are trying to separate "SOMETHING". Now I just have to figure out what that something is!
> 
> Smurfe



"You've got to keep 'm seperated" quote from a song from The Offspring.
I really liked the Offspring I was a teenager in the seventies. I liked the punkers
like Iggy Pop, Nina Hagen, the Sex Pistols (sorry for the language  ).
But The Offspring were with this text right on the nose..........



Caplan said:


> Luc - back to the picture. Does the fact the bottle is topped with a paper towel mean it's stored that way throughout the procedure?



Yes it was stored like this throughout the whole period. Good thinking.



Caplan said:


> Luc, is the clearer fluid on top a 'seal' over the dark fluid?



Sorry Smurfe..........
Caplan is on the right track. 

From 7 december to 12 december is 5 days and we are getting there.
I will give you with these clues a bit of time to overthink this and am sure you will
work it out.

I will get back to you in a short while, in the mean time keep posting with your thoughts.

Luc


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## smurfe (Dec 13, 2006)

Are you trying to keep a wine from oxidizing during fermentation by layering it with a type of oil? Someone told me they did that in the ancient times. 

Smurfe


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## Luc (Dec 14, 2006)

*Congratulations Smurfe*



smurfe said:


> Are you trying to keep a wine from oxidizing during fermentation by layering it with a type of oil? Someone told me they did that in the ancient times.
> 
> Smurfe



Well I grant you this one. Actually it is not during fermenting but during aging.
But you are right.

Ok I will explain.

A lot of discussion is going on about topping up of the cartboy afther you have racked your wine and there is a lot of headspace.
Best way is to move to smaller carboys, but that is not always possible as they are not always available.
Then you can top up with wine, juice water etc.
Some are filling the carboy with marbles to top up, or are using an inert gas like Argon.

I tried to examine the ancient approach. But I wanted to know several things:
- Will the wine oxydise
- will the oil spill due to exposure to oxygen
- will the fluids mix
- will the taste of the oil get into the wine.
- will the oil be spilled through the exposure of oxygen.

Well oil is a widely known preservative in food storage. So I thought it
is not likely to spill over time. But only tests will tell if this is the case in an open jar as opposed in the food industry in a closed tin can or glass jar. Only one way to find out: test it yourself, and that is what I did.

So I took a wine bottle and drank half of it. The other half I split into 2 bottles.

So I have now a bottle with a little bit of wine (look at the picture). I then added a lot of olive oil to one bottle and sunflower oil to the other bottle.
The results are what you are looking at in the picture. Both looked similar.

My thoughts were that if I used a little bit of wine and a whole lot of oil it was more likely to have influence on eachother then if I was going to use a lot of wine and a very small bit of oil.
Said in other words: if this would work, it is certainly not going to spill my wine if I use a small bit of oil on a 3 gallon carboy. 

I put a paper tower on the bottle so oxygen could go in but no bugs could get in.
I left it like that for more as a month.

After one moth I racked the wine from beneath the oil.

How to proceed:
Take a siphon and put a small bit of plastic at the bottom and suck.
Now while the plastic stays on the siphon put the siphon in the bottle to the bottom and blow a bit. 
The plastic will get off and no oil will get into the siphon. 
I will look into this to test for other means. The best way is of course a fermenter with a tap at the bottom.

So now for the results:

The wine from the bottle on which I poured olive oil, was not oxydised and was not spilled. But the wine definately had a taste of the olive oil in it.
Now if you use a small drop of olive oil on a large carboy you are not likely to notice it but nevertheless I would not recommend it (although the ancient Romans did it this way).

The wine from the bottle with the sunflower oil was great.
It was not mixed, it was not oxydised, it was not spilled and there was no of flavor from the oil in the wine.
I am certainly willing to try this experiment in a larger batch and for a longer period.

One month is a short time in wine aging but my results so far are very promising.

Look if this will work or you. Try with small bits of wine and a lot of different oils.

In future times the experiment will continue.

In the mean time it was fun having you all guessing what I was trying to do.

Thanks
Luc


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## Caplan (Dec 14, 2006)

Well done Smurfe! 

Luc, 
A strange experiment! I'll admit It's not one I'll be trying but your findings were interesting. Did you use a commercial or a home made wine for the test?


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## smurfe (Dec 14, 2006)

It was very interesting. I'll tell you what though. If you look up Kombucha, that is what it looked like he was doing. I found a couple posts that had a jar with liquid that looked the same.

Smurfe


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## Luc (Dec 15, 2006)

Caplan said:


> Well done Smurfe!
> 
> Luc,
> A strange experiment! I'll admit It's not one I'll be trying but your findings were interesting. Did you use a commercial or a home made wine for the test?



Commercial wine ?????
Is that drinkable ??????

O.k., o.k. there are some decent commercial wines out there but to be frank
not to my liking.
With the amounts of wine I produce (I just started yesterday evening a 3 gallon batch
of tangerine wine  ) I simply never buy commercial wine.

So to keep a long story short: it was homemade wine.

Luc


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## jdymen (Aug 23, 2007)

*Recommendation*

What you are doing as you said is something that is not new. 

Improovements:

Use liquid food grade Vaceline. Any oil get rotten with the years, vacceline doesent. you only need a longneck bottle and a vaccene. You use the vaccene yo take out the vacceline when you want to rack the wine. Another technique is overflowing the bottle with wine, the first thing to overflow wil be the vacceline. 

Problems: 

When you use large bottles, with the heat of the summer volume may vary and the big bottles (3gal or more) may overflow, make sure in spring you take out a little wine. 

If you can get a glass vaccine, its better to use than a plastic one.

Advantages:

Food Grade vaceline is odorless and tasteless, and doesent get rotten as oil.


I have tryed this with my home made wine. It works perfect

cheers

Jose


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## joewino (Jul 23, 2008)

Looks interesting ....hmmmm (gears are grinding in my head)

Almost looks like olive oil setting on top of the wine ...maybe to keep it from oxidizing?

Anxious to hear about it


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## Wade E (Apr 8, 2009)

Any updates on this thread Luc?


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## Luc (Apr 11, 2009)

Sorry Wade,

No updates on this one yet.

To be frank I have not repeated the experiment after this one.
But I have not forgotten it.

So many things came up after this experiment.
But the food-grade vaseline idea keeps popping up every now and then......

Luc


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