Mainiac on the loose

[cooldood]

Hello everyone I am a complete noob and need all the help I can get.

I came here because I just started making a few kits.

My LHBS guy said I could ferment, rack into secondary after 4 weeks again after 3 weeks and then bottle after 2.

He says using this method I do not have to degass. ???

 

[DoctorCAD]

He is correct, but you will not end up with good wine. All of the kits rush you to bottle, partly because its how they market the kits and partly because you will be buying another kit every 3 months that way.

The best thing to do is google "extended wine kit directions". You will find a fairly good one for 90 days and a much better one for 180 days. I only use the 180 day instructions anymore, as the wine is much better and much clearer.

He is totally wrong on degassing, some kits hold on to CO2 like a bum with a shopping cart. 2 or 3 days of stirring still doesn't get rid of all of it. The only thing that helps is a vacuum pump or time. A vacuum pump is an essential (trust us on this one) but expensive. Time is cheap.

Good luck and keep us informed what you are doing.

 

[olusteebus]

You can degas with a hand brake bleeder, it takes some time but inexpensive.

Here is my suggestion. Make a kit or two and don't hurry to bottle. If you can go 6 months that will be great. immediately after making a kit or kits, make a couple of variations of skeeter pee and you can bottle and drink pretty soon. See the skeeter pee section.

 

[cooldood]

I have been homebrewing beer for years so I have learned the valuable lesson of keeping the pipeline filled
I have plenty of time and like building stuff so maybe I could hook up a vacuum pump to my flux capacitor.
I have seen on TV people using an electric drill with an attachment. How effective is that?

Lastly with beer I only use plastic buckets. Will this be ok for such a long secondary?

 

[cmason1957]

First off - Welcome to WMT. It is a good place to ask questions like these.

Long term bulk-aging no, plastic fermenting buckets are not advised, you want glass or something like a better bottle, which is plastic, but different. Also (and probably more importantly), the shape of carboys is to have a very small neck, so only a very small amount of your wine is exposed to the air.

I take a slightly different view of the way to start in this hobby. First two or three kits, buy inexpensive kits ($50-75) make and follow the directions as close as you can. Remembering that hydrometer readings are more important than specific days, in the beginning. This helps you get down the process of making wine, learning the sanitation aspects. Since you have been making beer, this may not be necessary for you, but it gets you something to drink in 3-4 months, instead of the year. Will these be great wines, probably not, but they will at least drinkable, guaranteed. Degassing is the hardest part of doing this and the electric drill attachment helps a bunch. There are two different styles one with two paddles is easy to find, every LHBS sells them, I don't find them particularly useful. There is one that WineExpert makes that has a tripod shaped end to it (three things stick down longer). It works wonders, 5-10 minutes would be a long time for me to use it.

After that, decide if you want to stick with kits, for now or head off to fruit apples, pears, strawberries, blackberries and of course grapes. Also at some point in there take a look on this site and find Daves Dragons Blood and skeeter pee. Two very easy, quick drinkers. Then eventually move into the longer term aging, letting time do the degassing for you.

Good Luck and ask anything, someone will have an answer or an opinion, probably 10 or 12 of us.

 

[tonyt]

That's good advice from cmason above. You CAN degas with a drill and mix-stir attachment. It's cheap and works. Just be careful to not form a vortex in the bucket allowing air to be sucked into the wine. a back and forth motion with a reversible drill works best. Make sure your wine's temp is in the mid 70s or it wont give up the gas. I found that four or five sessions of 5 minute drill stirring worked for me. I always do my stirring in primary bucket then rack back to glass carboy.

Early on I improvised my own vacuum system using a small Electrolux vacuum cleaner, an air lock as a coupling device and some tubing. It was crude but FREE. When I was sufficiently hooked on winemaking I moved up to a vacuum medical aspirator. If I had it to do over I would bet an All In One advertised on this forum.

As far as extended aging, I always recommend getting your first kit into bottles quickly then if you like your wine starting another kit to age for 6 months or so prior to bottling.

 

[cooldood]

OK next week will be four weeks. Following my LHBS advice I was going to rack to a secondary. I assume I will now degas. I was going to rack using either the shake the p*** I mean gas out of it or try the vacuum method. I still have to add the FP so I was going to add it after degasing. Does this sound about right?
Or should I not degas until after the FP has fermented out?
Stabilizer before or after degassing?

 

[sour_grapes]

What is an "FP"? Is this an "f-pack"?

What kind of kit is this?

 

[cooldood]

Yes it is I got lazy typing

winexpert sherry