Temperature fluctuations.

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Greener

Junior
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What can and will go wrong with wi e in the secondary stage(carboy). The temp as we speak is going from 22 Celsius to 28 Celsius. We have a heat wave right now and will these temp hurt the wine. Wi e was made from a kit. They are a Black Raspberry and the other is a Blood Orange. Thanks for any feed back.
 
Lower temps are better, of course - like 22.
Fruit flavor and aroma might be affected at higher temps. 28 should be ok. 32+ might be a concern.
Naturally, temperature is just one of MANY variables that affect the final wine.
 
First of all welcome to Wine making Talk

yeast are exothermic/ heat producing organisms. The wine has probably been two degrees higher than the air temperature while actively fermenting. On a secondary/ airlock carboy for a few days it won’t hurt much. If long term the yeast are stressed and die faster/ start producing elevated sulfur compounds which can mask fruity aromatics. … What gravity are you at? or were you at when you moved to glass. One positive is that getting to 28C will have pushed most of the CO2 out so degassing isn’t an issue.

If high temp is expected for a while like two months try to cool the carboy as put it in an AC room or in a kids pool with milk jugs of ice or in front of a fan with wet towels over the carboy.
 
I make 3 or so 7 gallon black raspberry each year. I rack secondary about each 3 months for first year then bulk age in secondary another year. Started various times of year as when I have time. Summer temps in wine room range up to 85 F in summer and down to 70 F in winter. Really can’t tell any that temperature has been a problem. All batches are fantastic.
Never made blood orange so zero experience there.
Hope this helps a little.
 
The cooler your wines are the longer that they will store. The only advantage of heat is to precipitate protein haze in white wines. I store my carboys and bottles in a temperature/humidity controlled walk in cooler at 56-59 which ages wines even fruit wines for 7-9 years without problem. I leave the white wine carboys on a bench in my basement at about 65 Fahrenheit for about 3-4 weeks before bottling to catch any haze missed by bentonite addition mid-ferment e.g. 4-6 days active ferment. Heat will impact smell in delicate wines. Heat also helps malolactic fermentation but 65 Fahrenheit is high enough to complete malolactic fermentation in 90-120 days especially on unsulphited grapes. Finally heat is good e.g. hot summer attic if you are trying to make sherry or madeira from grapes or fruit e.g. pitted Italian prune plums with dried figs, sultana raisins, dried elderberries, oak cubes topped up with demerara rum from EC 1118 yeast or other high alcohol tolerant yeast.
 
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