Cellar Craft cellar craft home kit iussue

[fish]

hello, i already posted about this and stiil the same prob. i am supposed to be ready for bottling although i am allowed to bulk age for another three weeks before i have to add some metasulphite to ensure stable aging. 5 days ago i racked to plastic carboy and back to glass again , this has now bought me upto day 35 or so , bottling time, problem is that airlock is still releasing a bubble every now and again. is this a major problem, i dont know, its my first batch. wade have you an answer.

 

[cpfan]

Fish:

You probably did not degas sufficiently, and the wine is still releasing CO2.

Steve

 

[fish]

what do i do to degas more is there a chemical i add or is it possible that there is some kind of fermentation still going on. bit flustered, thanks by the way steve

 

[Wade E]

Have you checked te sg a few days in a row to make sure it is stable? It is very possible that it is still C02 still in your wine, what did you use to degas your wine? You really need a drill mounted stirrer to degas a wine.

 

[smurfe]

what do i do to degas more is there a chemical i add or is it possible that there is some kind of fermentation still going on. bit flustered, thanks by the way steve

You need to stir or shake the wine to degas. The best way is to use a stir device that mounts on a drill. If that is not available a long handled spoon where the handle will fit down in the carboy neck will suffice but take a very long time. There are other options such as vacuum units but if you don't have the other options available, I doubt very much you have a vacuum unit available. One last thing and it actually works best is to administer "TIME" and just let the wine sit. It will eventually degas itself over a few months.

DO NOT get locked into the hype the manufacturers provide that says you have to do "this" or "that" by "x" time. This hobby requires a whole lot of patience. Also do not give the idea that a kit wine will go bad after "x" amount of time. I had a bottle of an Island Mist kit last night that is right at 4 years old. It was as good as when it was made. No extra K-Meta was added at bottling. I do have decent storage conditions though except for the total of a month that the wine sat in the high 90's when we had no electricity after various hurricanes.

The whole point here is one I stress when someone is terrified they ruined their wine. It is very very very hard to ruin a kit wine. In fact I can say if you ruined a kit wine you ought to really find another hobby. Sure, you may get a kit that had some type of infection in the must but it is very very rare. If you follow cleaning and sanitation practices it is pretty well a task anyone can do. You may not make the best wine to the kits potential but it is really a tough chore to ruin a kit wine.

Signed:

One of the other Steve's

 

[smurfe]

BTW, the absolute best two kits I ever made were Cellar Craft kits with the grape pack. An Amarone and the Rosso Fortissimo. Both of these kits sat in my house with no electricity with temps in the high 90's for over a week when Hurricane Katrina blew right over the house. I won gold medals with both of these wines at more than one competition. The Rosso was actually the best scoring wine I have ever made. Just wanted to pass along Cellar Craft makes some pretty decent kits.

 

[fish]

cheers smurfe, i have a long handle spoon i can attach to a drill so i will give it more time and next time i rack i can give it a good stir with that, great idea. do you reckon it makes a difference with bulk aging or bottle aging with these home kits????, i was just wondering cause i was considering bottling as i have another kit ready to go, and obviously have only the equipment for one batch at a time , i got a cellar craft cab sauv this time. but if it is better bulk aging maybe i should do that, i know you say that you cant ruin home kits, which is great news, but the more you read the more you realise everyone has varied ideas on every aspect of the process and i find a lot of tips you read up on contradict each other. anyway, thanks for your help.
fish, sydney.

 

[St Allie]

Sydney,

I'm doing a lower end cellar craft merlot without a grape pack... but! adding banana juice and chopped raisins to the primary, increases the body and mouthfeel. I cheat and tweak it a bit.. however it was on sale at $70, they are usually $110.

Allie

 

[smurfe]

Fish, go ahead and bottle it and let it age in the bottle to free up the equipment. Nothing wrong at all with bottling as soon as it is done and verified done.

 

[fish]

i notice when i come home after work that the water in airlock has levelled off and no movement and when i put on the heat and start cooking and the place heats up nthe wine lets off a bubble or two so seems to be temp related. its winter here now. gonna pass it through a filter and bottle it this weekend, wonderin if its possible bottles can explode. also can i add rasons or sultanas to a wine home kit, add to the bag of grapes???

 

[Wine-O]

Sydney,

I'm doing a lower end cellar craft merlot without a grape pack... but! adding banana juice and chopped raisins to the primary, increases the body and mouthfeel. I cheat and tweak it a bit.. however it was on sale at $70, they are usually $110.

Allie

Allie,
How do you add banana juice? Is it just mashed bananas? I wanted to try this let me know how and when to add.
Thanks,
Dave

 

[St Allie]

Dave you add the chopped raisins to the primary and you boil the bananas in water on the stove.. strain off the juice and add the juice to your primary add the rest of the kit up to your 23 litre mark.. and continue as normal...

couldn't be easier and if you're really keen... you throw in some frozen blackberries too.. that really ups the flavour on a low end red wine.

Allie

 

[Wine-O]

Thanks Allie, I'm going to give it a try on the next one.