Back in to the Carboy

[montanaWineGuy]

Damn!!! Last year I made two 6 gallon batches of Elderberry, and one is perfect and the other is carbonated. I did everything the same, but the one is explosive. Its taste is very good, and I wouldn't mind it at all, but corks are being pushed out. I uncorked them all and put the liquid into a carboy, and will consider rebottling in a month or more.

Anybody experience this? Have some advise, or can explain what might have happened?

 

[vacuumpumpman]

What was your sulfite levels ?

How old is your sulfite ?

Could you be going thru Malo ?

 

[cpfan]

Did you sweeten both of them? If so, how did you stabilize?

Steve

 

[Arne]

Hope you had them in a place that the juice wouldn't hurt. Just thinking about the purple mess makes me think of a bunch of cleanup. If it is refermenting, you will have to wait for it to stop. Let it clear and Hit it with k-meta and pot. sorbate and then sweeten again. I had an apple did the same. One cork I have never found. Bounced around my junky basement and disappeared. Anyway, it was only a gallon, wound up with three bottles of sparkling apple that we had to hurry and drink. Got them in the fridge, cooled em down and enjoyed them. But apple didn't leave much for stain marks. Lucky me, Arne.

 

[heatherd]

Damn!!! Last year I made two 6 gallon batches of Elderberry, and one is perfect and the other is carbonated. I did everything the same, but the one is explosive. Its taste is very good, and I wouldn't mind it at all, but corks are being pushed out. I uncorked them all and put the liquid into a carboy, and will consider rebottling in a month or more.

Anybody experience this? Have some advise, or can explain what might have happened?

Could be gas, refermentation, spontaneous MLF. I would give it time to do whatever it's doing, stir it to degas, let it clear, then stabilize and backsweeten again. Luckily a solvable problem!

 

[montanaWineGuy]

Could be gas, refermentation, spontaneous MLF. I would give it time to do whatever it's doing, stir it to degas, let it clear, then stabilize and backsweeten again. Luckily a solvable problem!

Lots of bubbles the first day in the Carboy. Seems to be settling down quite a bit. I'm going to let it settle for a month or so. It's really quite good tasting, and I'm glad I got to it before any explosions.

 

[Turock]

Six or seven months is pretty early to be bottling. As you've found, not all the CO2 is necessarily gone in that time frame. A wine like elderberry also needs at least a year in bulk aging to get all debris out. We have some elderberry in long term storage--5 years. It's really nice after all that aging. Everyone on this forum is so anxious to bottle and drink early wines. You don't know how much better your wine would be if you'd slow down and let time work on your wines. Young wine has no where NEAR the profile that it will have 1 or 2 years down the road.

 

[HillPeople]

Yes to Turock. The best thing that can happen to you is if you run across a carboy of something you meant to bottle a year or two ago, but forgot all about it.

 

[vacuumpumpman]

Lots of bubbles the first day in the Carboy. Seems to be settling down quite a bit. I'm going to let it settle for a month or so. It's really quite good tasting, and I'm glad I got to it before any explosions.

Did you add any sulfite after putting it in the carboy ?

If it is spontaneous MLF - you most likely stopped it then.

 

[montanaWineGuy]

Did you add any sulfite after putting it in the carboy ?

If it is spontaneous MLF - you most likely stopped it then.

I might have put some Camden tablets in there. Probably not.