Cloudy after transferring to bottling bucket

[mxsteve625]

I have been homebrewing beer but this batch of White Zin is my first attempt at wine. Last night my wife sampled a glass prior to todays bottling. The sample turned into about two bottles worth. After transferring to the bottling bucket I noticed the wine had considerable cloudiness - sediment during sifioning I guess. Anyway, I didn't want to bottle the cloudy wine so I racked it into another carboy and figured I would let it sit for another day or two. Problem is there is about a six inch head space of air in the carboy. Will this greate a problem with oxidation? Will this distroy the body of the wine?

Any help will be appreciated.

 

[Racer]

Top up with another white zin and let your wine clear back out for you.

 

[Runningwolf]

I agree with Racer. It may take a week or two. Be Patient.

 

[mxsteve625]

Thanks, Thats what I'll do.

 

[Wade E]

Welcome to our site and glad to have you here After awhile of making your own wines youll eventually have a stash of your own where you can just use a like bottle of yours to use for topping up but for now a commercial will have to do. a bottle or 2 wont change your wines profile at all but after that it way start imparting that flavor.

 

[gawine]

If we rack a second time you should use a firm bung(?) instead of a bung with an air lock right?

 

[mxsteve625]

The wine we made turned out REALLY well. As you can tell from my wife's sampling. I just hope we can salavage it. If not we'll do it again from lessons learned. GOING TO THE STORE.

 

[mxsteve625]

Just to let everyone know the wine was bottled on the 12th and turned out really well. It was a WE kit which our local distributor suggest we make a 5 gallon batch vs the manufactures 6 gallon recipe. Body, flavor, color and clarity is excellent.

Thanks for the help.

Steve

 

[mikev63]

Is there any good way to rack to wine and not suck up the sediment on the bottom of the carboy?

 

[gawine]

Steve, wow, I never heard of making a lower capacity than the instructions tell us to.. interesting.

The siphon wand should have a little piece of plastic over the opening preventing it from sucking up the lees. you'll get some but not that much. I've heard of tilting it slightly to one side may help...

 

[rawlus]

i'm not sure how i feel about a retailer advising customers to make the wine up as a 5gal instead of 6gal. i think that sort of advice is wreckless at worst and ignorant at best.

as to racking with as little lees as possible, let the carboy clarify while propped up on one end with a 2x4 or dictionary, then when racking, slowly lower it back down to level and the lees should be piled up in a little mountain on one end and fine on the other.

the other technique is to start your racking by pushing the cane right down into the lees and watching the wine in the tubing. siphon off the initial cloudy stuff into a separate bottle and as soon as it clears the rest can go into your carboy...

 

[Wade E]

I use the tilted carboy method but also use another method a little different then stated above. I keep the racking cane up in the middle and slowly lower it down as I near that level so that it doesnt get to the bottom till the last minute so that there is no chance in accidentally disturbing the lees by swishing them with the cane and thats easy to do buy just moving the bottling wand around from bottle to bottle. I have heard making a lower end kit into a five gallon batch but have never tried it.

 

[mxsteve625]

The retailer told me that they had complaints that the 6 gallon white zin finished with a somewhat low body and flavor. They said that after 2 to 3 rackings a five gallon batch is what they recommended due to losses between the rackings.

I usually brew beer (had 2 5 gallon carboys already) and this was my first attempt at wine so I went with the retailers recommendations. It did turn out good. I have since heard that WE as improved on the kit. I can't confirm it thought.

 

[Hillbilly Bill]

i'm not sure how i feel about a retailer advising customers to make the wine up as a 5gal instead of 6gal. i think that sort of advice is wreckless at worst and ignorant at best.

as to racking with as little lees as possible, let the carboy clarify while propped up on one end with a 2x4 or dictionary, then when racking, slowly lower it back down to level and the lees should be piled up in a little mountain on one end and fine on the other.

the other technique is to start your racking by pushing the cane right down into the lees and watching the wine in the tubing. siphon off the initial cloudy stuff into a separate bottle and as soon as it clears the rest can go into your carboy...

Rawlus... don't use a dictionary... that is sacriledge!

5 gallons from a 6 gallon kit? I don't have a problem with it... all you are missing out on is a gallon of water, which you can always add back if you want to water it down.
However, if mouthfeel is the problem, you could have tried banana soup or glycerin.