Topped off carboy with commercial wine

[Ventisei]

Hello,
I am brand new to winemaking. I bought 5 gallons of frozen Cabernet Saugivnon from Livermore. I followed the MOREWINE instructions and after finishing primary fermentation my final sp. gr was 0.992. I pressed my grapes and let them sit for about 36 hours. I then racked into a new 3 gallon carboy and innoculated with ML bacteria and Acti-ML. Unfortutanely, this is where I screwed up. I had too much head space so I added almost a whole bottle of store bought cab to top it off. EEEKKK!!! Have I totally blown it? Is there anything I can do to save it? I do some activity but I'm sure there were sulfites in the wine I added. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance!

 

[cmason1957]

Getting rid of the headspace was a good thing to do. The little bit of sulfites in the store bought wine probably will cause you no issues.

The activity from MLF is very subtle too almost nothing. It does take potentially a fairly long time (2 to 3 months) for MLF to complete and the only way to know that it has completed is by running a test or using Malic acid test strips. You will want to keep the temps up somewhat, somewhere around 70-75F.

 

[Ventisei]

Oh thank God!! Thank you so much!

 

[AFW]

I have seen a hack to fill up head space by using glass marbels. Haven’t tried this but seems they would be easy to sanitize and would do the trick. Obviously you would need a lot of marbles and they are reusable.

What do you think of this?

 

[DrGriz]

I have seen a hack to fill up head space by using glass marbels. Haven’t tried this but seems they would be easy to sanitize and would do the trick. Obviously you would need a lot of marbles and they are reusable.

What do you think of this?

Just did exactly this with lingonberry wine I made that had way more gross lees than I had accounted for. I did not want to dilute with another wine or water (first trial, want to see how it tastes without blending). Had too much headspace and so I added marbles.

 

[winemaker81]

I have seen a hack to fill up head space by using glass marbels. Haven’t tried this but seems they would be easy to sanitize and would do the trick. Obviously you would need a lot of marbles and they are reusable.

What do you think of this?

Make sure the marbles are lead-free.

 

[Ventisei]

Thanks for the marble advice. I just place an order for glass marbles from a home winemaking supply store.

 

[AFW]

What winemaking supply store did you order from?

 

[Ventisei]

What winemaking supply store did you order from?

MoreWine.com We visited their store in Concord, CA and bought most of our supplies to get started. I am following their red wine recipe for my first attempt at winemaking.

 

[Ckent]

Adding store-bought cab with sulfites could slow down or inhibit the ML fermentation, but it doesn’t necessarily mean your batch is ruined. Keep an eye on it, if ML doesn’t kick off or gets stuck, you might need to add more ML bacteria.

 

[Ventisei]

Adding store-bought cab with sulfites could slow down or inhibit the ML fermentation, but it doesn’t necessarily mean your batch is ruined. Keep an eye on it, if ML doesn’t kick off or gets stuck, you might need to add more ML bacteria.

It’s isn’t obviously bubbling in the airlock but I do see tiny bubbles rising to the tip and there is about 1/2 of bubbles on the surface of the wine. Is this ok? It’s been about 48 hours.

 

[winemaker81]

It’s isn’t obviously bubbling in the airlock but I do see tiny bubbles rising to the tip and there is about 1/2 of bubbles on the surface of the wine. Is this ok? It’s been about 48 hours.

It's likely normal degassing. Once fermentation is complete, there's a lot of CO2 trapped in the wine. The excess exits the wine, a process that can normally take weeks or months.

Note that activity in the airlock tells you nothing useful. It could be active fermentation, normal degassing, changes in temperature/barometric pressure, or possibly other things.

Your hydrometer will let you know that fermentation is active (SG drops). For MLF, a chromatography test is required.

 

[hounddawg]

years ago i bought a ton of clear glass marbles', but have never used them,
i keep many gallon, half gallon, quart and pint jars, i make excess wine then keep the extras in my top off bottles,
all my bottles use a 6.5 drilled bung, my carboy use a small universel bung, keeps things simple, the small universal can be flipped
upside down to airlock a 750ml wine bottle.
Dawg