I have made a few RJS wines now. I am about to make my first Cellar Craft Showcase wine. RJS instructions had me transferring wine from bucket to carboy for secondary ferment without need to top off at this stage. CO2/SO2 would protect. Cellar Craft says I should top off during secondary ferment. Who is right or is CC made different where this is necessary?
RJ Spagnols RJS vs. Cellar Craft secondary fermentation
- Thread starter Gekko4321
- Start date
Help Support Winemaking Talk - Winemaking Forum:
Bartman
Senior Member
You can't go wrong by topping off, but I am a little surprised that your initial racking does not yield enough to fill the carboy. Often, there is a little too much (~.5 liter), and you have to find another container to hold that excess volume until your next racking. If the kit volume works out as expected (which I would give it about 50% chance of doing), then you won't need to worry about it, because you'll have the Goldilocks volume - not too much, not too little, but just right. I think I have only made 1-2 kits that didn't yield enough to fill a carboy at the first racking (except when I didn't add enough water at the beginning).
It sounds like you may be simply planning ahead, and trying to anticipate any potential problem. There is little or no difference to the final product with either approach, I think CC instructs you to top off in case you don't rack it again for 3-4 months (as I frequently do); by that time, the 'protective' gasses will have dissipated and your wine could be oxidizing and getting nasty. So it's probably more of a fail-safe for CC than anything else.
My suggestion, if you discover you don't have enough volume, would be to use glass marbles to displace the air at the top of the carboy instead of topping up at that early stage.
It sounds like you may be simply planning ahead, and trying to anticipate any potential problem. There is little or no difference to the final product with either approach, I think CC instructs you to top off in case you don't rack it again for 3-4 months (as I frequently do); by that time, the 'protective' gasses will have dissipated and your wine could be oxidizing and getting nasty. So it's probably more of a fail-safe for CC than anything else.
My suggestion, if you discover you don't have enough volume, would be to use glass marbles to displace the air at the top of the carboy instead of topping up at that early stage.
At first rack I am 1-2 liters short of hitting the neck of the carboy. I am told 6 gall carboys are really 6.5 now. So 1/2 liter gone plus loss of sediment must equal some loss. At least this was my experience with my first 2 RJS wines. I was always told CO2/SO2 had me protected (same during primary where I was told to not seal bucket lid). Is that correct? I hopefully have not oxidized my first 2 batches already. Moving to CC my concern is back to where I do not want to top off with wine already processed and aged into wine that is still fermenting and will be cleared and stabilized soon. I also do not want to top off at all anymore and I am getting smaller ranging carboys as a result. I thought the RJS logic as sound but need reassurance or understanding why CC recs differently. You pro's are all I got! 
Bartman
Senior Member
The differential in the volume of (allegedly) 6-gallon carboys could be part of the issue - of my five 6-gal carboy, three are glass and two are plastic (Better Bottle), and I know the plastic ones hold about ~.5 L less than the glass, so I try to rack to a glass carboy from the primary (if available) and then later rack to the plastic carboy as the reduced sediment seems to coordinate with the reduced volume.
The logic is ok on both - the fermentation process will be the same for virtually all your kit wines. And yes, the fermenting must at the secondary stage is still generating a 'blanket' of gasses that will slow, if not prevent, oxidation, but not as much as the earlier fermentation stage. Also, keep in mind that oxidation is a slow process - it doesn't happen in one or two days in a not-fully-topped-off carboy, but over weeks or months. And the presence of some oxygen in the carboy is essential - that's what keeps the yeast going in the secondary stage. But the CC folks are a little more anxious about kit winemakers not keeping the air volume at the top to a minimum than the RJS folks, would be my guess. I agree that adding a finished wine to a fermenting wine is not ideal at this stage, but it would accomplish what CC is aiming at.
At the risk of beating a dead horse, I would again recommend using glass marbles to make up that differential - IMO, glass marbles are ideal because you can use as many or as few as you need to displace that air at the top. Since each wine is a little different, there is no 'perfect' set of carboy sizes to have on hand, but enough marbles can make a 1-gal jug into a .5 L jug, if need be.
The logic is ok on both - the fermentation process will be the same for virtually all your kit wines. And yes, the fermenting must at the secondary stage is still generating a 'blanket' of gasses that will slow, if not prevent, oxidation, but not as much as the earlier fermentation stage. Also, keep in mind that oxidation is a slow process - it doesn't happen in one or two days in a not-fully-topped-off carboy, but over weeks or months. And the presence of some oxygen in the carboy is essential - that's what keeps the yeast going in the secondary stage. But the CC folks are a little more anxious about kit winemakers not keeping the air volume at the top to a minimum than the RJS folks, would be my guess. I agree that adding a finished wine to a fermenting wine is not ideal at this stage, but it would accomplish what CC is aiming at.
At the risk of beating a dead horse, I would again recommend using glass marbles to make up that differential - IMO, glass marbles are ideal because you can use as many or as few as you need to displace that air at the top. Since each wine is a little different, there is no 'perfect' set of carboy sizes to have on hand, but enough marbles can make a 1-gal jug into a .5 L jug, if need be.
I have found that Showcase GP kits can fill up an Italian (more than 6G) carboy no problem at the day 10-12 racking. If it doesn't, I wouldn't bother topping, personally. It will be close to the 3" below the bottom of the stopper, and as you say, CO2 and SO2 will protect the wine until day 20ish day when you stabilize and top up.Gekko4321 said:
![[Upgraded] 9Pcs Tree Root Growing Box with Drain Holes, Half Transparent Plant Rooting Propagation Ball & Metal Core Twist Ties, for Fast Propagation Plants (Size M)](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/514MWQxtWOL._SL500_.jpg)
I have a bunch of the Mexican carboys and none of them are same size. I marked the larger ones so the wine would get racked from the larger vessel to a slightly smaller one. Bart made a great point in that the use of glass marbles and a good supply of extra glass is very handy to keep around.
