Floating berries suffocating yeast?

[wineforfun]

I get 3 strainer bags for $2.96 at Menards. No more than I use them, I figure for $1 per bag, I will use them, then discard them.

 

[floridacelt]

Figured I'd post an update to see if I got any more of this exceptionally helpful feedback.

1. Racked into secondary carboy at S.G. 1.010 (incidentally, it only took 3 days to get here from 1.094. This was done through a nylon fermenting bag to catch the gross lees. I then squeezed these out into the secondary.
2. Placed air lock and awaited completion of fermentation, which occurred on day 6 of fermentation. F.S.G. = 0.992.
3. Went ahead and racked into bucket for degassing. 5 campden tablets for 5gal of wine.
4. Discovered I racked too soon because the sediment amounted to a full gallon of the wine so I had to put a lot of it back into the secondary fermenter to top up.
5. The day after pot-meta, I added 2.5 tsp K-sorbate for stabilization.
6. I now plan to wait at least two weeks before racking again and sweetening if desired. I do have some jars of sediment set in the fridge to help with some minor topping up later on.
7. After sweetening, I plan to add sparkolloid and then bottle a week afterward, assuming clarity is achieved.

 

[Scooter68]

Well it all looks OK - as a matter of procedure (Others may see it differently) I move to glass carboys for the secondary stage of fermentation. Then I monitor it every day or every-other day until the SG reaches .995 or lower. (Most of my batches will go to .990)
AT that point I crush one campden tablet per gallon - mix with distilled water and put that into my Carboy and wait 2 weeks for things to settle.
Depending on the type fruit you may have a large amount of lees or next to none after fermentation is completed. One full gallon of lees for a 5 gallon batch does not seem extremely high. BUT the waiting period of 2 weeks gives the lees time to compact and settle more completely. Adding water is expected in most standard recipes you will find by folks like Jack Keller, EC Kraus and others. Minimizing that is great but I wouldn't worry about it. If you started with a high volume of fruit pulp, you are just going to have a lot of lees. That's why some folks like to juice the fruit before they put it into the fermentation bucket. They pre-separate the a lot of the pulp. One could make a case against that as it removes the opportunity for a lot of the fruit characteristics to be released into the wine. I'm not a scientist or chemist so that's above my knowledge level but... it does make some sense.

Since you removed the gross lees at the end of the primary fermentation as well as a lot of dead yeast cells you have reduced the chances of off tastes from the lees BUT not completely eliminated it. The newly expired yeast is going to be in the carboy after the campden tablet terminates any remaining fermentation but if you waited until 1.010 to transfer and remove the gross lees, there will be a lot less there to create issues.

Hopefully the senior folks with more experience can speak to how long to wait before the first racking after fermentation is completed.

Regarding this -What do the large volume wineries do after fermentation is completed? I suspect they have filters to remove lees from their must since the cost-benefit ration for them is far different than us as hobby vintners. I do know that with red wines they leave the skins in the must for a lot longer to extract more of the color and that contributes to more tannins in red wines.

 

[floridacelt]

"7. After sweetening, I plan to add sparkolloid and then bottle a week afterward, assuming clarity is achieved."
I was told elsewhere that I should definitely NOT add clarifying agent after stabilizing as the clarifier would strip some of the K-sorbate out. That ship has sailed. Now, I was advised to add another dose of the K-sorbate after I clarify. Will adding another full dose of K-sorbate affect taste? Should I make it a partial dose?

 

[Scooter68]

Are you planning on bottling ASAP? Even with a strawberry wine I'd let it age a little 2-3 months minimum. As to the sparkaloid before Sorbate that's fine but after adding the sorbate I'd give it another week to allow be sure nothing precipitates out.

Age in-bulk (at least 2-3 months)
Sparkaloid
Sorbate
Wait a week
Filter (If needed)
Bottle

 

[floridacelt]

Hey Scooter, thanks. Unfortunately for me, I've already added the sorbate, and now I hear I shouldn't have done that until after the sparkolloid. I can wait, but my question is whether I need to add another dose of sorbate after I use the sparkolloid?
I hear the sparkolloid can undo the affects of the sorbate.

 

[Scooter68]

if you are going to age it just keep an eye on it. If it shows signs of starting to ferment again then you can step in.

 

[drainsurgeon]

I'm questioning the sequence of the sorbate and clearing agents. I have made kits for years and you add K-meta, Sorbate, stir. Add F-pac, stir. Add Chitosan, stir. All in step 3 and it works. The only wine I've made from fruit so far (on batch 4) if from Dave's Dragon Blood recipe, and his procedure is the same except his instructions are to wait for clearing (or at least 1 week) before back sweetening. I'm not saying I'm right, just that it seems to work fine. Someone explain why you should wait for the Sorbate?

 

[Scooter68]

In a quick bit of research, before posting that suggested order of things, I never found anything stating that sparkaloid would stop Sorbate from working, but rather than ignore the suggestions... Additionally it's a different product than Chitosan so reactions could be different.

I may also take negative comments on this but... I also don't see the benefit of using Bentonite during primary fermentation. It's supposed to drop a ton of material out of the must and during primary I want all those things interacting releasing all the flavor and character of the fruit. During the secondary stage of fermentation, yes, by that time the fruit should have given it's all and the clearing should begin. Truth be told I would prefer never to use fining agents if possible. When I read about all of them they each have potential side effects on the wine that might be undesirable such as stripping color, flavor etc. - I'd rather just let time work for me.

For the time being, since time is not an issue, I would stick with keeping the Sparkaloid and Sorbate separate. After all, time and time again the guidance to new winemakers is consistently to be patient, wait for it, don't rush it - this isn't fast food city.

Would be nice to hear some substantive comments as to why or how Sparkaloid interacts with or negates Sorbate.

(For grins there is a very extensive thread on Bentonite in Dragon's Blood with an interesting end - And it's not the first 'end' in that thread - spoiler - Initially Bentonite seemed to take away some things desired in the brew but after aging a while the changes that seemed negative went away - aging changed that . )

 

[floridacelt]

Thanks for the replies, this has been immensely helpful!
In the interest of full disclosure, it was EC Kraus that advised sorbate after sparkolloid due to the sparkolloid compromising the sorbate's effectiveness. HOWEVER, they came back later with "[FONT=&quot]Actually, I did some more checking and you do not need to add any additional potassium sorbate because it permanently bonds with the wine."

So, my original plan seems to be fine (i.e. after sorbate, sweeten, and then clarify). I just wanted to follow up to prevent people from worrying about stripping the sorbate with clarifiers after I brought it up!
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