WineXpert Mezza Luna Red - Started my kit (pics included)

[scubaman2151]

How do I get the oak out of my wine before I rack?

 

[grapeman]

You just leave it in there when you rack it. It will sink and mix with the lees. Eventually when you rack off the lees, it remains behind and you just rinse it out with the lees. Unless you dump the lees outside somewhere, I dump the rinsate out in the toilet and flush it to prevent p-trap plugging in sinks.

 

[PolishWineP]

As Appleman said, they will sink to the bottom. But, you may find that they can plug your auto siphon when you rack the first time. To help avoid this, we don't set the auto siphon on the bottom of the primary when we start, we hold it off the bottom. When the siphon slows we knock it against the side of the primary to knock out some of the accumulated wood.
When it comes to disposing of the lees, especially with wood in it, we often dump it into our composter or on the flower beds out front. It looks odd when there's snow on the ground, but I'm not known in the neighborhood and one of the normal wives anyway.

 

[bovinewines]

LOL PWP....Remember...Normal is overrated anyway!

 

[dfwwino]

Great job Scuba. I'm looking forward to hearing how your kit turns out. I continuously read good things about the VR Mezza Luna.

 

[scubaman2151]

I am most likly going to rack this into secondary tomorrow morning.


One question though, what wine should i use to top this up with? I was thinking that a merlot might work well but what do you guys think?


Also, I have decided that I am going to rack this wine twice before bottling just to make sure it is as clean as possible.


so it will be into secondary, clear it, rack it again, then bottle.


To bottle im probley looking around early to mid december.


Scuba

 

[uavwmn]

Scuba, I will rack my Mezza Luna 4 days from now. I was thinking of racking twice also. When you rack that 2nd time, how long do you keep it in the 2nd rack? I will probably bottle from the fermentor bucket to be able to use the spigot.
BTW, on your advice I got the vinator to sanitze my bottles.

Are you making your own labels? Do you have a software that you use?
uavwmn

 

[scubaman2151]

uavwmn,


I will leave the wine in that second rack untill it looks clear and ready to be bottled. I also like you, use the primary to bottle, makes it a lot eaiser .


As for labels, for this batch Im getting Joan to help me out with designing them.


-Scuba

 

[PolishWineP]

I am most likly going to rack this into secondary tomorrow morning.


One question though, what wine should i use to top this up with? I was thinking that a merlot might work well but what do you guys think?


Also, I have decided that I am going to rack this wine twice before bottling just to make sure it is as clean as possible.


so it will be into secondary, clear it, rack it again, then bottle.


To bottle im probley looking around early to mid december.


Scuba

A merlot will be just fine. Especially if that's what you have available!

Glad to hear you're willing to go the extra mile and time to let this mature and drop some more lees. It's hard to do when you first start making wine, but experience is a great teacher. Just wait till you have a bunch of carboys hiding in the dark, just biding their time. Bert asked me today if we have an empty carboy for the Chianti I started today. I told him if not I could probably find something that could be bottled. There's got to be 2 or 3 down there that could go to bottle.
Scuba, you've really come a long way in a short time.

 

[Wade E]

If Joan's helping you with the labels then your going to have some mighty fine wine with the labels to match!

 

[scubaman2151]

Thanks Polish for your great compliment.


Also,


I racked the wine into secondary yesterday (Saturday), the SG was 1.012-1.014, I know that was a little to high but I couldn't do it today and I didn't want fermentation to stop by the time I could get to racking it. I have pics but they aren't downloaded yet :-(.


Surprising most of the oak stayed behind in the primary and I don't think much got transfered over.


Ill post the pics in a little bit.


Scuba

 

[scubaman2151]

I promised you pics so here they are. They are all from saturday.

Getting ready to rack^

Almost ready^

Racking^

Still racking^

Almost there^

Full^

Carboy sitting^

Oak left on bottom of primary^

I thought the carboy might be cold so I wrapped it in a blanket^






Things are still going well, but when I racked the SG was at 1.012-1.014, that was on saturday, today is monday and fermenting is still going, hasnt slowed to much slighty but not much. Kinda funny.

 

[grapeman]

That's perfectly normal. That is a good SG to rack at and it will continue for a week to 10 days- slowing progressively. The last picture of the bucket with the oak still has some good liquid in it. Did you try pouring it out gently and saving it? It all comes in handy at some point. I'll bet that will be a good tasting batch!

Edited by: appleman

 

[Wade E]

That's perfectly normal. That is a good SG to rack at and it will continue for a see</font> to 10 days- slowing progressively. The last picture of the bucket with the oak still has some good liquid in it. Did you try pouring it out gently and saving it? It all comes in handy at some point. I'll bet that will be a good tasting batch!

Appleman, this reminds me of a story my old boss told me of when he went to a very desolate area of Maine. He was driving down a logging road as was very lost. He had been driving for about 1 hour when he finally came upon a shack on the side of this dirt road with an old man sitting in a rocking chair. He asked where a town was and the old man answered that it was FO(4) see's down the road. My boss said what is a see, the old man replied look down the road as far as you can see, its about 4 x that!

Now thats a hick!

 

[Waldo]

Looks might good scuba....Did you taste it at this time?

 

[scubaman2151]

Looks might good scuba....Did you taste it at this time?

Lol, nope not yet. I will taste it though once fermentation is done and before I stablize and clear it.

 

[scubaman2151]

Well today I degassed the wine and added in the rest of the packets the kit gave me. The rest of my plans for this kit include letting it sit for another 2 weeks, then rack it, letting it sit for another 2 weeks. That should bring me to around Dec 18th. Then Ill bottle it.


So far the wine is smelling and looking very nice. I took one of those 1,000,000 power candle light spotlights and tried to shine it through the wine, the wine was so dark in color you could literally not see any of the light going through it. Lol.


Scuba

 

[Wade E]

Are you going to add the extra 1/4 tsp for this batch or do you see it disappearing within a years time?

 

[scubaman2151]

So I finally got around to racking this one again. We got the wine back into a nice clean carboy and Ill letit sit for another few weeks before bottling. The color of the wine is very nice but the taste just really isnt very good, it seems to be bland more then anything else. Is this just becuase it hasnt aged enough? Or could it be somthing else?


Scuba

 

[grapeman]

The flavors will develop and change as the wine gets some more age on it. One thing you could do with it to add extra character-though it might not maintain the intended character of the kit- would be to add some oak cubes. French Oak will give it some vanilla flavor and the Hungarian oak would give it a toasty slight barbeque hickory flavor. And a couple ounces int the carboy and test it weekly until it is oaky enough for you then rack off the oak.


Good to see you scubaman. Visit more often.