Mosti Mondiale MM AllJuice Reisling

[uavwmn]

Gina, your secret is safe with me.

Racked my Riesling Sunday. I have never bulked aged anything as yet. I just can't wait to get the finished product in a bottle, get them labeled and stored in every niche and cranny here in the house. hahaha


Here is a picture of the Riesling straight from the primary bucket to carboy.

 

[Wade E]

That will look so much different in about 3 weeks!

 

[uavwmn]

Wade, it is a lighter color already!! And it hasn't been a week yet.

 

[Wade E]

It will be crystal clear in about 3 weeks.

 

[K&GB]

Gina and I racked her Reisling off the lees Friday evening and mixed in the K-Meta and K-Sorbate. We degassed it over the weekend and then added the clarifiers on Sunday evening. It's now resting comfortably back in the pantry.


Here's a view prior to racking.

And here she is racking with the auto-siphon...

Here it is back in the pantry. We topped up with smooth polished river rocks from the craft store, and I can see sediment already building like snow on top of the rocks.

 

[Wade E]

I know nothing about these rocks but it worries me cause they are porous in my opinion and can harbor bacteria.

 

[uavwmn]

Ken, are you worried about the pores in the river rocks to throw some sort of minerals into your wine? It does seem that the rocks would give up more space in the carboy than marbles. Interesting~

 

[uavwmn]

K & GB, here is the Riesling picture I promised.

Added the k-sorbate and k-meta and clarifier on Friday. Maybe next weekend if it is clear as a bell, it will be bottled and lookin' "purty".
Looking around for the label this morning. haha
Maybe we can exchange a bottle and critique each other?

 

[K&GB]

UAVWMN,


Looks great! Where did you get that temp strip on the carboy?


Regarding the river rocks, I must admit I'm somewhat concerned. It never occurred to me they were porous, but they are. Fairly large bubbles rise when you rap your knuckles on the side of the carboy. We soaked them in K-meta solution first, but I'm not sure that was sufficient. Probably won't use them again.


The lees have settled back down, so we'll rack it this morning into a 3-gal, two 1-gal, and a 1/2 gal. If there's any left over, we might fill a bottle. I'm sure Gina would be happy to exchange a bottle when she gets around to bottling it. Keeping it in the carboy is her insurance that I won't drink it...lol.

 

[myway22]

You can order the temp strips from George.

 

[PolishWineP]

Poor Bert racked ours yesterday, taking it off the lees dropped by the clearing agents. It's got a very nice color to it, and is clearing nicely. It's still very young and needs time in the carboy and time in the bottle to allow the flavors to develop and open.

 

[K&GB]

Gina racked her wine Sunday morning; however, during the process we noticed a lot of CO2 left over.

We had degassed the previous weekend per the directions, using a hand drill with the fizz-ex attachment, but at the time we saw almost no gas being released. Having later read about this same issue in other posts, I thought I understood why. The fizz-ex warns against reversing directions, so we didn't.


Since I don't have an empty 5-gal carboy, we racked into a 3-gal, two 1-gals, and a 1/2 gal. But I still didn't have enough drilled stoppers to use airlocks in both 1 gals and the 1/2 gal. Well, the solid stopper kept popping out of the 1-gal, so we knew we had to degas again.


Today we racked back into a primary, and we sawa lot of CO2 bubbles. So we used the fizz-ex again, ignoring the warnings, and stirred both forward and backward. Still didn't work well, even on my drill's fastest setting. So I gave up on the hand drill and went back to the wooden dowl I used to use. Much Better!

I can stir the heck out of it with the dowl and reverse course instantly. Now we're getting some serious bubbles!


We plan to replace the wine into the carboys tomorrow after we're sure it's completely degassed. Guess I'll either have to order another 5-gal carboy or some more drilled stoppers for the 1 gal jugs.Edited by: K&GB

 

[Wade E]

This is what makes the Mityvac brake bleeder or even better the electric vacuum pump the best for degassing.

 

[PeterZ]

The river rocks are OK to use it properly prepared. The porosity offers an advantage is assisting with degassing. Just boil them in water for about 15 minutes, cool in the boiling pot with the water - covered, rinse with a SO2 solution and put them in the carboy.

 

[K&GB]

Here's the pics from last Sunday...

<DIV align=center>Preparing to rack
<DIV align=center>
<DIV align=left>

<DIV align=left>
<DIV align=center>Racking with the auto-siphon
<DIV align=center>
<DIV align=left>

<DIV align=left>
<DIV align=center>Now for a lil taste...

<DIV align=center>
<DIV align=center>
<DIV align=left>FYI, the river rocks were so hard to get out of the carboy when I cleaned it that I chucked 'em. As I mentioned before, I've ordered another 5-gal carboy from George, and we plan to rack back into that. Gina's determined to let this wine age all summer in a carboy. What a woman! Edited by: K&GB

 

[grapeman]

Looks like 5.5+ gallons there. If you rack to a 5 gallon carboy, what will you do with that extra 1/2 gallon?

 

[Wade E]

Great job Gina!

 

[dcrnbrd]

k how is the reisling doing now? Curious. I am thinking of this as my next kit.

 

[JimCook]

I just started this kit yesterday - the juice had a great apple smell and a nice straw-yellow color in the primary. Starting specific gravity was 1.072, which seemed so low after my crazy-action Outback Shiraz. I'd like to know how this wine tasted when fermented to dryness if anyone has experience with that.


Thanks,


- Jim

 

[K&GB]

The reisling is very clear and resting in a 5-gal carboy and a half gal jug. We tasted it prior to last racking and thought it was wonderful. I really liked it unchilled and unsweetened, but Gina plans to back-sweeten it prior to bottling in the fall. Sorry I don't have tasting notes for this one, other than to say that I was impressed.


Ken