Cleared overnight! What Next?

[Johann]

I was wondering how soon I can bottle. I am making a kit and reached the "Stabilizing and Clearing" step. The wine cleared to the point I can read through the carboy overnight!

Other than clearing, what is being accomplished by letting the wine sit in the carboy at this stage?

Kit specifics:
Cellarcraft Reisling Ice Wine # 108932 Lot # K278125A

 

[Tom]

1st it is important that you NOT rush your wine. All kit directions are a little different. Follow the kits directions as far as TIME and gravity. These are the minimun times. We here usually extend the "aging" time. By waiting"aging" you will get the wine to meld the flavors together and make a smoother wine. You may want to rack again so to leave behind all that droped to the bottom of the carboy. How does it taste?
Ice wine should be bottled in 375ml bottles. Do you have all this? Even after you bottle you need to let it sit for 3-4 weeks before you open one (bottle shock). The longer you let it age the better the wine. Save a few bottles and open them at 1yr 1 1/2yr and 2 yr and taste the difference.
Cheers
Welcome to a great group

 

[WhineMaker]

+1 on what Tom said.. Also, look closely at the sides of the carboy.. On mine there are ridges that the lees like to stick to.. A quick twist of the carboy will release them to the bottom..

 

[Johann]

I'll give it a twist

I will give it a twist and see what shakes loose.

As for taste, my wife wanted to lick the glass...and she doesn't normally like whites.

I have to go buy bottle, corks and a corker before I can bottle anyway, I was just shocked it cleared so beautifully and so quickly. I will probably bottle it in the minimum time because I would like to take some to a friend in a few weeks and we are driving up.

I have already started a second batch, a Pinot Noir and it is fermenting vigorously.

 

[smurfe]

If it is clear, you can indeed bottle it but I'd give it just a few more days. It is probably still dropping some sediment even though it is clear. If you bottle it too fast you could have some sediment in the bottles which for some like me is unsightly. Kit directions are merely guideline averages on how the kit is going to progress. I have had kits ferment to terminal gravity (0.090) in 3 days where the directions said to rack in 7 days when the SG get to 1.020. I have had kits take a month to ferment. It is a living thing that does it's own thing. Good luck and let us know how that Ice Wine turned out.

 

[Wade E]

Let it sit a little longer then what the directions state on the lees as this will let the lees(Sediment) compact so that you can rack off the lees to another clean carboy without disturbing that sediment as easily. I recommend not bottling from the vessel with the lees in them as you most likelt will disturb them while bottling and then you will be stuck with only 1/2 of your wine bottled and no way to top up 1/2 a carboy while your wine clears again.

 

[Johann]

It's all shook up

and only a little stuck to the glass and settled out again ... I have another 2 1/2 weeks before I will probably bottle it.

Thanks everyone!

 

[jbullard1]

If it is clear, you can indeed bottle it but I'd give it just a few more days. It is probably still dropping some sediment even though it is clear. If you bottle it too fast you could have some sediment in the bottles which for some like me is unsightly. Kit directions are merely guideline averages on how the kit is going to progress. I have had kits ferment to terminal gravity (0.090) in 3 days where the directions said to rack in 7 days when the SG get to 1.020. I have had kits take a month to ferment. It is a living thing that does it's own thing. Good luck and let us know how that Ice Wine turned out.

Smurfe's words are true
I bottled a Pear wine about 6 weeks ago that I thought was clear, now has a slight haze on the bottom of the bottle, nothing bad, but I just got in a hurry

 

[blackcrk]

I know i'm a little slow responding to this post, but I'm just catching up on the posts from the last month or so.

I've been struggling with the question of when the wine is fully clarified for a long time. My usual process is to take a 6 gallon batch that has been clarified and when it appears to be clear, rack it into a 5 gal carboy and a 3liter or 1 gallon jug. The idea is that the 5 gallon carboy will get the wine from the top of the carboy where the wine was clarified so it should be the most free from sediment, while the 1gallon jug takes the risk of getting a bit of lees from the bottom of the clarification carboy. Next step in the process is to wait a week or 2 and see if any sediment forms in the 5 gallon carboy. If no sediment forms and the wine looks clear, it's ready to bottle.

With my current batch of wine that's clarifying, I found a week or 2 ago that it appeared to be clarified when observed in normal room light, but if I looked carefully, I thought I could see some suspended small particles in the wine. After several minutes of careful observation and cleaning the outside of the carboy to make sure it wasn't an optical illusion from dust on the outside of the carboy, it occurred to me that I should be able to illuminate the particles suspended in the wine if I used a strong flashlight. So I took a strong flashlight turned it on and pressed it against the carboy, and the suspended particulates shone like stars on a clear night (ok , slight exaggeration, but you get the idea). Clearly too early to rack, so I started running the flashlight test every day or 2 (takes 10 seconds), and watched as over days the night stars turned into a milky narrow pencil sized beam. I know what I'm observing is light scattered off the flashlight beam from suspended particles in the wine. I'm thinking a laser pointer might work even better.

The wine kits I use (VR) recommend (rough paraphrase here as I don't have the directions immediately available) that you put a sample in a wine glass, and look at in under good light, and see if it is sparkling clear. I'm wondering if my flashlight/laser test might turn into a better test that is less subjective, cheap (most people have a good flashlight), and less invasive (doesn't require stealing some wine from your topped-off carboy to put in a wine glass under good light).

Any thoughts?

 

[Wade E]

I always let my wine sit for a few months after fining and almost everytime there is some sediment that has dropped out. That is why i always let my wine sit much longer then instructions say.

 

[bruno]

I have a laser that I tried to use for testing the clearing of wines, and it didn't work all that great. However I also now use a strong flashlight and it seems to work very well.

 

[blackcrk]

My theory is that an excessive amount of suspended particles in the wine is what makes it appear cloudy during the early part of the clarification process. As you allow more time for the wine to clear, the cloudiness disappears, but that doesn't mean that there are no suspended particles in you wine. If the wine still has suspended particles after it appears clear in normal light, llumininating the side of the carboy with a laser or flashlight can make the suspended particles visible as they scatter the incident light.

The shorter the wavelength of the incident light, the more the light scatters. In the visible range, blue (purple) light has the shortest wavelength, while red has the longest. The scattering of light explains why the sky is blue on a clear day, while sunsets are red. The blue sky is due to the fact that blue light is more readily scattered by particles in the atmosphere than the red light. You are seeing this scattered blue light when you look at the sky.

The red sunsets are due to the same thing, the colors with shorter wavelengths (blue,green,yellow) are scattered by the atmoshphere between you and the low sun in the west. The scattered blues (and green and yellow) remove these colors. leasing the longer wavelengths to gget to your eye maling the sun in the sunset appear red.

The point here is that a strong illumination of the wine in a clear carboy will give you an indication of the level of clarity by the amount light that gets scattered. I think that is why I see a pencil beam illuninated when it put a strong flashight against the carboy. Most laser pointers ar helium-neon (pretty red with at 632.8nm wavelength) and that may be why you don't see the scattering when using the laser. The other big factor is that the total power of the illuminator is important. If your laser is weak compared to your flashlight, that could explain why you didn't see the scattering.

 

[Johann]

Just an update

I bottled the wine 3 weeks later and it has been very clear with no clarity issues, It has been very good to drink too unfortunantly I only have 6 bottle left out of 3 gallons and lots of requests for more...

I wanted to have this batch ready for a special event and it all went fine. Now time to make more and hopefully give the next one the time it really deserves.