secondary headspace

[wineforfun]

I did some searching on this and am still not quite sure. I have a batch of Dragon Blood going. I already racked it and have it cleared. I just racked again tonight and backsweetened with sugar. When racking again, I lost some and now am sitting just above the shoulders of my 1gal. carboy. I don't have any other wine to top it off with, as this is my first try at winemaking. I do have some 100% juice I could use.
Do I need to add to my batch and if so, would the juice work?
Thanks for the help.

 

[Minnesotamaker]

I wouldn't use juice because unless you've treated with sorbate and sulfite, the sugars in there will start the fermentation going again and then you'll have to rack again and be in the same position. Some choices you have:
a) Top up with water. This will dilute your final product some, but if you made it potent to start with, you may be OK
b) Get some wine and use it to top up.
c) treat with Kmeta and potassium sorbate and then add juice or sugar
d) replace the oxygen at the top of your carboy with a gas other than oxygen. Carbon dioxide or nitrogen.
e) bring the wine level up with something that takes up volume but doesn't change the wine. Some people use glass marbles. They drop them in the carboy which brings the level up.

 

[wineforfun]

I had already added sorbate, etc. to it about a week ago. I was racking again and backsweetening last night when this happened. I went ahead and used 100% fruit juice as that was all I had. Hopefully all will work out.

 

[shoelesst]

I did some searching on this and am still not quite sure. I have a batch of Dragon Blood going. I already racked it and have it cleared. I just racked again tonight and backsweetened with sugar. When racking again, I lost some and now am sitting just above the shoulders of my 1gal. carboy. I don't have any other wine to top it off with, as this is my first try at winemaking. I do have some 100% juice I could use.
Do I need to add to my batch and if so, would the juice work?
Thanks for the help.

Sounds Iike its to late, but I don't think I would have used the juice without doing some bench trials. It's tough to reverse decisions like that.
How close we're you to bottling? I probably would have just bottled if it were close. By adding the juice you've changed the wine to something you may not have wanted to make, unless you were after a wine cooler.
In the end it all comes down to your taste. Let us know how it turns out.

 

[wineforfun]

Well, I was shooting for the sweet Dragon Blood like the recipe calls for. I am hoping the 14oz. I added will be dispersed throughout the gallon enough that it doesn't really affect the flavor. This is supposed to be a sweeter light wine so we will see.
Live and learn, huh.

 

[robie]

This is all a learning experience and sounds like you are definitely learning... welcome to the club!!! Your wine will survive just fine.

Next time, since you are talking about a gallon container, use marbles to raise the level of the wine. For a small container, it doesn't take so many marbles to raise the level as it does for a 6-gallon carboy.