how best to store wine during sedimentation?

wine newbee · Oct 5, 2019

My 1st go-'round with wine-making, so pls indulge .....

I racked my 1st batch's fermented must into a big glass jar and the 2nd batch's into a plastic carboy. I now have each placed into a guest bath (seldom used room) in my house, and out of direct sunlight.

I'm wondering, though: the room is still pretty bright during the day, and the room is always between 78-80 degrees F. Can that be a problem? Should I place the jugs into a closet (total darkness)?

A beer brewer told me maybe I should place a short rack atop a floor vent so that when AC comes on, the jugs' contents'll be a little cooler than the rest of the room's temp. Would that matter? Maybe a moot point, since cool weather's finally here in eastern NC, but .... for possible later use.

I have to confess, too -- the idea of keeping a liquid for long-term (and an acidic liquid at that) in a plastic container kinda creeps me out. Plasticizer leaching, etc. Does anybody have observations on this one way or the other?

Thx much for any insights into these; I'm having to feel my way through the process and -- like they say -- the devil's in the details.

Mitch

CDrew · Oct 5, 2019

Temp wise it sounds a bit warm, but you have what you have. Open the window at night.

Regarding light, you can just put a black contractor trash bag over the carboy and that will be plenty dark.

Intheswamp · Oct 5, 2019

Rookie/newbie/inexperienced response here...

What size jugs are you using? 1, 3, 5, 6 gallons?

Total darkness would naturally be the best, but dim lighting works. I take it that you have the jugs sitting in the bathtub which is a nice, safe spot for the primary fermentation when a chance of overflowing must is present. For long term storage you could wrap them in a towel, use the garbage bags that CDrew mentioned, or for more opacity you could use aluminuminuimum foil

.

I would not place the jugs over the vent. One thing that seems to be important is *constant* temperatures so that the jug doesn't "breath" in and out repeatedly due to the temperature swings which can draw oxygen into the vessel (oxidation issues). We've been hitting in the upper 90's all of this month in south Alabama (hit 100+ a couple of days) with little to no rain...we got our first small bit of rain yesterday and tomorrow the high temp will be roughly 8-degrees-F cooler than today's predicted 96F, and further dropping a couple of degrees in the following days. What a relief that will be!!!!!! But, I digress...

Your temperature isn't *too* high for the initial fermentation. Seems a little warm for clearing and aging, though. A trick that I've read about and that makes some sense to me, but I haven't personally tried it, is evaporative cooling. Place a towel-wrapped jug into a pan full of water. The towel wicks the water up wetting the outside of the jugs. As the water evaporates it causes the temperature to be a few degrees cooler inside the jug. How well this works depends on how fast the evaporation is, current humidity levels, temperature, etc,. A small fan to circulate air around the wet-towel-wrapped jugs will promote better evaporation. I would leave the door of the bathroom open so that the slight elevated humidity that is created can go into a larger area, an opened window would be great. A small, closed area does not work well for evaporative cooling...the air moisture needs to go "somewhere" or you just end up with a muggy/damp room.

For a primary fermenting vessel an open plastic bucket with a santized towel secured around the edges over the top works great. For transferring to secondary (and beyond) I use glass...that way I don't have the question lingering in my mind that you are asking. There are people who swear by the Better Bottle bottles and people who curse them. Now, if these are simply re-purposed "water bottles" then they are not of the same quality as the Better Bottles. Besides possibly leaching "whatever" into the wine there is the debate over oxidation happening due to oxygen penetrating (especially the water bottles) plastic containers. Move to glass and don't look back. Check Craigslist, flea-markets, yard sales. Or buy new online or at your local brew shop. Many times the local shops will be very close in price (sometimes cheaper!) than online sources...and you don't risk the chance of a box full of shattered glass being what you receive off of the big brown truck.

Scooter68 · Oct 5, 2019

Temps are a little on the warm side but some of us don't have the location that offers the perfect solution. Any thing you can do to get the temps closer to 70 would be good. The light situation - again covering the carboy with a towel (Or a wet one one as intheswamp suggests might also help moderate the temperature since the fermentation has ended.

wine newbee · Oct 5, 2019

It's appreciated, guys; the black trash bag is elegantly simple; I'd've never thought of it.

I plan to get a big glass carboy or 2 soon; the plastic one was given to me, and beggars can't be choosers.

The glass container is 2.7 gallons and the plastic one, maybe .... 3-3.5? Maybe more. I don't recall being told.

Scooter68 · Oct 6, 2019

This hopefully will provide you some clarity on common wine making phrases/phraseology used to describe the periods of time in wine making.

Preparation of the Must - Gathering the fruit, adding all ingredients, adjusting the balances of the Must all the way up until you pitch yeast.

Lag Time - From the time you pitch the yeast until first signs of fermentation has begun. This period of time can range from a few hours to 2-3 days depending on a variety of conditions.
The most obvious sing that lag time is over is a buildup of a foam cap or sizable bubbles and the smell of yeast. However, both the start and finish of fermentation can only be confirmed by a hydrometer.

Fermentation - That period of time when your wine yeast is busy converting all available fermentable sugar into alcohol. This process can last from 2-3 days or as long as 2-3 weeks although some winemakers will stretch this out with white or delicate wines with cooler temps to preserve violatile elements in their wine. Fermentation that last much longer than that may be stuck or stalled due to an imbalance in the wine must, environmental conditions (too cold), or the use of a yeast of too low a alcohol tolerance for the amount of sugar present in the wine must. The only certain way for most home winemakers to determine the completion of this fermentation with a hydrometer.

Malolactic Fermentation - MLF for short, this is a bacterial fermentation which can occur after yeast fermentation winds down or finishes. Most often this is done for red wines although some winemakers use MLF on other varieties The bacterium Bacillus gracile converts malic acid into lactic acid and carbon dioxide. Lactic acid is much less harsh than malic and thereby softens and smooths the wine, but the wine also is endowed with a cleaner, fresher taste. In addition, diacetyl (or biacetyl) is produced as a byproduct, which resembles the smell of heated butter and adds complexity to wine. MLF is a positive event in some cases and has a downside in others--the fruitiness of wines undergoing MLF is diminished and sometimes off- odors can result. To ensure MLF, the wine should not be heavily sulfited and it should be inoculated with an MLF culture. If MLF occurs after bottling, it produces a slightly carbonated wine which may or may not be appreciated. MLF progress is usually tracked through Paper Chromatography, however there are other methods as well.

Aging - The process by which wine matures, in bulk or in bottles or both, to achieve smoothness (in acidity), mellowness (in tannins and other phenols) and unique character and complexity. The major activities in this process are the chemical reduction of certain compounds into others, primarily by hydrolysis or oxidation, and the joining together of short molecular chains into longer ones. Volatile esters, ethers and acids create bouquet, which is not the same as aroma. During aging (Which can range from a few months to several years, de-gassing, and settling of solids (Sediments) normally clears a wine. In cases where the wine is does not clear on it's own Fining materials/chemicals or filtering (For hazy wines) can produce the finery crystal clear wines more quickly.) Aging is mostly considered best done in bulk as that allows the wine maker to periodically assess the progress and fine tune the wine including back-sweetening the wine.

Primary vs Secondary Fermentation - Terms most often used to describe the period of time when fermentation is proceeding rapidly with much bubbling and foam or later with foam subsides markedly but fermentation is still ongoing. Both terms are not really formally defined in the wine-making world so using those terms often produces more confusion than clarity for new wine makers. Some folks use a particular SG level to define the stages and at that level they rack their wines into a different container. Allways using a fixed SG level for timing that transfer (normally from a bucket or wide mouth fermentor) can potentially create a mess if the wine becomes 'invigorated' and produces a large amount of foam and overflows the new container. Some may use the term primary for the period of time when yeast is creating alcohol and secondary for when an MLF has started or is ongoing.

The above is just my interpretation of the most common terms used to describe the time periods from when you start to make your wine until you are ready to bottle it. As always there are many opinions regarding the use of these terms and you may see posts following this 'correcting' me. Never fear that is both the nature and flexability of wine making - there aren't as many hard-fast rules as some follks expect.