Topping off

[hounddawg]

i read many, many post, some to help me, some just to learn others ways, to keep a open mind for learning is a advantageous thing,,
that being said, i have read many post, some top off with water, or a like wine or use marbles or head space removers,,, i keep 1 gal jugs, 1/2 gal jugs, 750 ml jugs and 375 ml jugs, when i make any and all my musts, i always make extra of that must, the extra goes in to the smaller jugs that way at every racking i am using the exact wine that i am making, of course all my wines are from scratch, all that i have ever made, i have done this from the very first one, i am wondering why more people don't do this, i have no views on how anyone wishes to make their wines, just curious to see if any others do it like i do it,
Dawg

 

[garymc]

I think I have 11 gallon jugs that will take an airlocked stopper, a couple that are 2.5 or 3 quarts, a half gallon, some 1.5 liter wine bottles, and regular 750ml wine bottles that I use exactly as you described. But I also usually have some corked bottles that have sediment, so I use those also. Hate to waste the cork, but I'm embarrassed to give people wine with a lot of sediment. Oddly, making 60 or 70 gallons of wine a year. I usually don't have more than one or two of those overflow containers going.

 

[FTC Wines]

We do it like Dawg and Gary. But for kits we buy a similar commercial wine to top off with, unless we have a homemade wine to match. Roy

 

[mainshipfred]

I also have many different size vessels but I don't get too particular about being the same wine. More often than not when racking I won't have enough to fill any container so all the leftovers go into one labeled topping off wine.

 

[Johnd]

I handle headspace the same way that @hounddawg does, putting wine into large vessels, leftovers in smaller ones. When my wines hit the barrels, usually bottle a case or two and use those bottles for topping up, and tasting the leftovers.

 

[salcoco]

I have been making wine for 35 years and never topped up my carboys., nor have I had any problems. trick is to keep thoolsrilized and airlocks full, I use a solution of 3 grams k-meta and 11 grams tartaric in one gallon of water in a spray bottle. I spray anything that will touch the wine. I also keep the so2 levels up in my wines. the amount of time that the carboy or other vessel is open to air is not sufficient to oxidize the wine. as so2 is a oxygen scavenger as well as a bacterial inhibitor proper so2 levels protect the wine.

 

[BMarNJ]

i read many, many post, some to help me, some just to learn others ways, to keep a open mind for learning is a advantageous thing,,
that being said, i have read many post, some top off with water, or a like wine or use marbles or head space removers,,, i keep 1 gal jugs, 1/2 gal jugs, 750 ml jugs and 375 ml jugs, when i make any and all my musts, i always make extra of that must, the extra goes in to the smaller jugs that way at every racking i am using the exact wine that i am making, of course all my wines are from scratch, all that i have ever made, i have done this from the very first one, i am wondering why more people don't do this, i have no views on how anyone wishes to make their wines, just curious to see if any others do it like i do it,
Dawg

I was wondering how that works if you are doing MLF on the main carboy? Do you do it to the smaller containers as well? I processed grapes and juice and had extra that I put in a gallon container with an airlock, but then did MLF and was wondering what would happen if I topped off after that racking with the wine that didn’t get the mlf bacteria?

 

[Doug’s wines]

I haven’t been making wine anywhere near as long as @salcoco , but I have stopped topping off as well. I visited several commercial wineries and found that many of them (especially the high end wine makers) do not top off their barrels which have far more air exposure than carboys. Some of the richest red wines I’ve had were from a winemaker in Australia who passed away from cancer. His wines stayed untouched in barrel for 5 years when one of his kids hired someone to check it out. They bottled it and they were all fantastic. (Shiraz, cab and blends)

in carboys I never top off, but do rack down time minimize headspace as much as possible.

in my barrels I use marbles to ensure the initial fill is completely full but don’t top off after that. I also don’t do too much sampling .

Since starting to do this, I find my wine to have a much better profile earlier and believe it’s due to the small amount of air exposure while young. The question is will it age as long? Don’t know as most of my wine is pretty young and it doesn’t stick around long!

Has anyone ever lost a batch by not topping off?

 

[hounddawg]

I was wondering how that works if you are doing MLF on the main carboy? Do you do it to the smaller containers as well? I processed grapes and juice and had extra that I put in a gallon container with an airlock, but then did MLF and was wondering what would happen if I topped off after that racking with the wine that didn’t get the mlf bacteria?

sorry i should of stated i do country wines only, i wear a permanent trach , and have no real palliat and taste sweet country wines very well ,
Dawg

 

[hounddawg]

well this has been another learning, i will keep doing as i do, but find it interesting that some never top off with no harm at all, that i find very interesting, thank each and everyone of yawl,

Dawg

 

[stickman]

My opinion is that topping up is standard practice, obviously you can decide to not top up, but there are details that have to be considered. How much head space are we talking about, type of wine and how old etc. Tannic reds are more forgiving, I've left my young reds untopped for several days or a week, but that's about it for me. On the other hand, white wine and certain fruit wines can be very sensitive to oxygen, especially if they are more than a few months old in carboy. Topping up is like many other questions with winemaking. Can you get away without topping up? Yes sometimes, maybe, but it depends......

 

[mainshipfred]

There's a recent similar thread somewhere about topping off and my response here is the same, I just don't want to take the chance.

 

[hounddawg]

i've found this topping off question way more complicated then i would of ever dreamed, as in all styles, and practices, there are many ways, i know i like and will always do my country hillbilly ways as I see fit, and i would have never dreamed that there were so many ways, that was my lack of vision for in life,, very little if not anything is cut in dry in life, even a hobby to some, away of life for some and peace of mind and sereine calm for others, this gives great creedence to there's more than one way to skin a cat, (and no i am not harmful to cats) i have found this very interesting,
Dawg

 

[reeflections]

I have always worried about airspace - not from any personal knowledge, just from what I have read here and elsewhere. I didn't like the idea of topping off with water or another wine, especially when there is a lot to top, so I got a few of the "headspace eliminators" from Steve at AIO. Now, after fermentation, I can create a vacuum in the headspace of that last carboy that didn't quite fill. I don't have a way to test SO2 levels so this helps me feel better anyway.

 

[Doug’s wines]

Interesting article on oxidation. No conclusion, just thought it was relevant to the thread

https://www.winemag.com/2019/04/09/wine-oxidation/

 

[Mead Maker]

Since the only time I add K-meta is right after crushing, all my wines are still “alive” and still fermenting very very slowly. That fermentation produces a cap of CO2 that protects the wine from any oxygen.

It’s an easy and inexpensive process.

 

[winemaker81]

Interesting article on oxidation. No conclusion, just thought it was relevant to the thread

Interesting article. One thing to consider is that the oxidative aging wines mentioned are the result of centuries of experimentation, certainly with many failures along the way. It's likely all started as an investigation into making palatable a wine that has gone bad.

I had a wine that had a larger head space for a while, develop off flavors. While I can't definitely say the air space was the cause, there appeared to be a causal relationship.

So ... I err on the side of caution and keep the air space to a minimum. It may not matter, but there is no down side.

Given how a half bottle of wine can go bad quickly while a carboy with an equal amount of air space doesn't, I suspect there may be a correlation between the volume of the wine and the volume of the air space.

 

[Eric Huser]

I couldn't agree more with NOT topping. I find that its just another "legend" much like degassing that doesn't need to be done.

 

[Johnd]

I couldn't agree more with NOT topping. I find that its just another "legend" much like degassing that doesn't need to be done.

I agree with you on degassing, it happens naturally with no intervention, speeding up the process mechanically seems to be the creation of kit manufacturers.

We’ll just have to agree to disagree about topping up being a “legend”. I believe it to be a simple, smart action to reduce the risk of wine faults.

 

[winemaker81]

@Johnd, your post invoked curiosity about the origin of "modern" wine degassing. There's not much info out there and it took a lot of searching to find this site.

According to the site (which I have not yet been able to verify), the research into degassing started in 1982 (see first link on page). This pre-dates the current concept of wine kits, but appears to be driven by a business opportunity.