Finer Wine Kit Finer Wine Kits

[Gilmango]

I racked both the Super Tuscan (ST) & Cabernet with Skins over to Big Mouth Bubblers last night at 1.014 and 1.010 SG. Having the wide mouths made moving the Skins in 2 muslin bags much easier. The plan is to leave the skins on for another 6 weeks for EM.

There’s more headspace than I would like, but when the bags of Skins rise, it will give then room for now. I did add the 1/4 tsp of K-Meta, just out of habit when racking, hope it doesn’t hurt The Cabernet had quite a bit more lees than the ST as you can see. I’m wondering if I should add the Oak cubes in now? or wait?? Thoughts ?View attachment 74753

Since you racked off the gross lees already, I would add the oak cubes now. I take it Cabernet is on the right, and the lower level is the indicator that you lost more wine to the lees during that transfer?

Many of us will save and refrigerate the liquid part of the lees (whether gross or finer lees), after a day you can generally see liquid on top and solids on the bottom, and pour off the liquid to add back to your wine before discarding the solids. Basically you lose less wine in each racking if you take this step.

I'm also doing EM with my Super Tuscan but will just keep it in the same fermenter (30 L Speidel) as it is in now during primary. So I won't add oak cubes till I rack to secondary after EM is done. I think either way is fine, I'm just lazy and have no fear of leaving my wine on the gross lees for a few extra weeks.

 

[Berry Juice]

just curious, I have never used any bags for the skins, why not just let them free float?

 

[wpt-me]

I am wondering if adding so2 to must will stop fermentation ??

Bill

 

[Gilmango]

just curious, I have never used any bags for the skins, why not just let them free float?

You can let them free float, and some feel that free floating allows for better circulation and better extraction. I think the pluses for the bags are that it makes it easier to rack without the skins potentially blocking your siphon, also easier to punch down all the skins all at once, easier if you want to keep the skins with the wine for EM in secondary (provided you have a large-mouthed secondary), and maybe best of all it is easier to squeeze out the skins and recover wine they have soaked up if they are in a muslin sack.

 

[winemaker81]

Since you racked off the gross lees already, I would add the oak cubes now.

I disagree, as the fermentation is not complete. Once the yeast is no longer producing CO2, more gross lees will drop.

Many of us will save and refrigerate the liquid part of the lees (whether gross or finer lees), after a day you can generally see liquid on top and solids on the bottom, and pour off the liquid to add back to your wine before discarding the solids. Basically you lose less wine in each racking if you take this step.

In this respect, we are in total sync. A year+ ago I poured the sludge from a barrel into a 1.5 liter bottle -- the lees compacted to 1", so I recovered almost 2 bottles of wine. While it doesn't always work out well, it's always worth trying.

just curious, I have never used any bags for the skins, why not just let them free float?

Ease of racking. "Chunks" will plug your racking tube.

Last fall I created a filter -- 4" PVC pipe with 1/2" holes drilled in it, wrapped with a fine straining bag. It made life a lot easier.

I am wondering if adding so2 to must will stop fermentation ??

K-meta does not stop a fermentation, nor does sorbate. To stop fermentation:

1) Filter yeast out of the wine. Commercial wineries do this for dessert wines. I have heard conflicting reports if the filters available to home makers are effective. I'm cautious as losing 2 cases of wine to corks blowing is major trauma to me.

2) Use a low potency yeast and enough sugar to exceed the yeast's tolerance. The problem with this method is that yeast do not read the spec sheet. Yeast have notoriously poor reading skills, and may exceed or miss the reported level.

If you want a sweet wine, set the OG to a level that produces the ABV you want. Then stabilize (K-meta + sorbate), and sweeten to taste. this is the method most commonly recommended on this forum. It works 100% of the time.

 

[Khristyjeff]

Started my Super Tuscan and Cabernet Sauvignon yesterday, both with double skins. I have to say I really like the smaller juice bag format from a lugging stuff around standpoint. I bought 10 gallons of distilled water per the instructions so that was easy. Did my yeast starter for 30 hours and that was obviously jumping. The dried skins are lovely and smell delish! Also like that they give you oak chips specifically for primary and oak cubes for aging. So far so good - my only compunctions are: using the superkleer, whether to put it under airlock during rapid fermentation as they did in the video, and using sorbate. I guess I will follow the instructions on these two and see how it goes.

+1 for using the word "compunctions." Well done!

 

[MarcOlivetti]

I believe that’s a double, if not a triple word score

 

[heatherd]

I ordered my Zin kit (/w 2xskins) on Sunday night, I got it today (Wed.), at 10:45, standard shipping. OH to MA is not a huge distance, but I am very pleased. (Oh yeah, and probably twice the juice than that low priced Chardonnay that I bought!) Thanks everyone, I looked to this site to find a reputable company, I haven't even started the wine yet, and I don't think it will disappoint!

They're a great company! And these kits are well-made.

 

[heatherd]

I racked both the Super Tuscan (ST) & Cabernet with Skins over to Big Mouth Bubblers last night at 1.014 and 1.010 SG. Having the wide mouths made moving the Skins in 2 muslin bags much easier. The plan is to leave the skins on for another 6 weeks for EM.

There’s more headspace than I would like, but when the bags of Skins rise, it will give then room for now. I did add the 1/4 tsp of K-Meta, just out of habit when racking, hope it doesn’t hurt The Cabernet had quite a bit more lees than the ST as you can see. I’m wondering if I should add the Oak cubes in now? or wait?? Thoughts ?View attachment 74753

I added the oak chips to my primary. I'll add the cubes after ferment is complete.

 

[Boatboy24]

Pitched the yeast on my Cab on Sunday morning and it was at 1.000 this afternoon. I racked it into the Fermonster and added both skins bags back in. In a week or so (maybe less), I'll add the KMeta to give a little protection, then let it go a few more weeks.

 

[Gilmango]

+1 for using the word "compunctions." Well done!

Compunction is also one of the best sour beers made in America (among those I''ve tried) by Russian River Brewing, bottled for the first time ever this past year, sour ale with pluots. Compunction | Russian River Brewing Company

To get back to the Finer Wines topic, man, the reports of crazy foam action are so true. The two bags of skins mostly keep the foam down, but as soon as I push down those bags and give them a stir the foam rises up and has nearly gone over the top of my 7.9 gallon Speidel. It is also foamy enough that even without pushing the bags down, I cannot get a good reading on my hyrdometer (which lives in the Speidel along with a thermometer during the active ferment). But I could see enough of it to know to add the Packet C this morning, after pitching the yeast starter Monday afternoon. Smell is very intense in my fermentation closet. FWIW I'm getting this foam despite subbing BM4x4 yeast and starting the yeast at just 64F (it was up to 71F last reading this morning).

 

[Berry Juice]

one other question, I normally use my filtered house water for my kits. Recently I have installed a water softener.
So now I'm thinking about buying either distilled or spring water by the gal.
which is best?

 

[Khristyjeff]

"Yeast have notoriously poor reading skills, and may exceed or miss the reported level."
[/QUOTE]

one other question, I normally use my filtered house water for my kits. Recently I have installed a water softener.
So now I'm thinking about buying either distilled or spring water by the gal.
which is best?

I've had the same dilemma. I used Culligan reverse osmosis water, cold water from the tap of Culligan system, and well water that tastes good and has nothing stripped out. At this point, I've decided that any good tasting water makes good wine. I'm sure there are differing opinions.

 

[bstnh1]

+1 for using the word "compunctions." Well done!

Had to Google that one!!!

 

[winemaker81]

one other question, I normally use my filtered house water for my kits. Recently I have installed a water softener. So now I'm thinking about buying either distilled or spring water by the gal. which is best?

Distilled water will have no minerals or anything in it. "Spring water" is a mixed bag, as vendors have been busted for selling filtered municipal water as spring water. I can't say if it makes much difference, so I'd use the cheaper one.

 

[bstnh1]

The finer wine kit instructions recommend distilled water. I have never seen that recommended for making wine before. I used spring water in the Finer kit I'm making and have used spring water for all other kits I have made. I also have a water softener and those leave a lot of salt in the tap water.

From Homebreit.com:

We don't recommend using distilled water during the kit winemaking process, there are key chemical elements that yeast uses in order to produce wine. The most important minerals are magnesium and potassium, which are important in the biochemical process of yeast converting sugars into alcohol, ethanol fermentation, and phosphate, which is necessary for yeast growth. If distilled water is the only type of water you have available, then you will need to add yeast nutrient to ensure the necessary minerals are in the solution for the yeast to operate properly. This is an easily avoidable additional step, just use a different type of water.

• Our Suggestion: Do not use distilled water for winemaking.

 

[Old Corker]

We don't recommend using distilled water during the kit winemaking process, there are key chemical elements that yeast uses in order to produce wine. The most important minerals are magnesium and potassium, which are important in the biochemical process of yeast converting sugars into alcohol, ethanol fermentation, and phosphate, which is necessary for yeast growth. If distilled water is the only type of water you have available, then you will need to add yeast nutrient to ensure the necessary minerals are in the solution for the yeast to operate properly. This is an easily avoidable additional step, just use a different type of water.

• Our Suggestion: Do not use distilled water for winemaking.

When I started making kits I used distilled water because logically the only thing that had been removed from the condensing process was distilled water. Then I read the above or something similar and started using spring water which I just consider to be purified water. Then Finer Wines said to use distilled water. So that is what I used for that kit. Never had to add nutrients although I did with the FW kit because they provided it. Over 30 kits now using both types of water and the only time I ever had a fermentation stop was because of temperature. IMO there is enough in the kit must to feed the yeast. If I had an RO filter I would use that. But am skeptical about using straight tap water.

 

[Gilmango]

We have pretty tasty tap water in San Francisco, flowing from the Hetch Hetchy resevoir in Yosemite, but it does have chloramines added (chlorine and ammonia) to prevent infections. So when I brew beer with it I add a Campden tablet. One single tablet will neutralize chloramines in 20 gallons of water in 20 minutes time I have read. Since I started making wines from kits I was initially using Brita filtered tap water plus a bit of a ground up Campden tablet for the 12 and 18 liter kits, which did not need as much water. For the Finer Wines kit I went to the store to buy water for the first time ever, since I'd need 4.5 gallons, this particular store did not sell distilled or purified water, only "alpine spring water" so that is what I got (somewhere in the Finer Wine booklet or videos they said "distilled, purified, or spring water"). It was Crystal Geyser bottled in Weed, CA from a spring below Mt. Shasta it says. No info about minerals or any water treatments on the bottle, need to email for that, but I read it must have over 250 PPM of total dissolved solids.

 

[heatherd]

It's beginning to smell a lot like fermentation here!

 

[cmason1957]

Got my Super Tuscan kit on Wednesday, I was a bit behind the others due to being out of town during the shopping period and one of the reasons I really love doing business with Labelpeelers. I sent them an email saying, I'll be out of town during a time period. Do you think you'll ship during that time period and I'll have someone stop by and put it into my fridge. They said no problem, let us know when you are back and we will ship then. That's customer service.

Back to the kit, I was glad I had read about the arrow and warnings about it. I didn't have any problems removing it. Loved the spout in the corner, rather than the center of the bag. Mixed it all up, grapeskins in without bagging, planning a for or six week extended maceration period. Wife suggested we order one to make straight by the directions (how can I say no).