topping up after tasting

[purpletongue]

I apologize in advance if this is a redundant question. I imagine it is but didn't find it in the search.

When you use the wine thief to do readings and tastings. It brings the level down quite a bit in my carboy (it has a wide mouth). I haven't noticed in my big carboy the need too during testings, but do you guys tend to top up after a tasting to limit headspace? I'm sure the normal water vs wine debate applies to this. If you top up with water do you stir it in? My instinct is I should top up to reduce that air in there. Since I don't think she's producing much c02 anymore.

Cheers

 

[rustbucket]

It sounds like you're at the stage where fermentation is almost finished or just fully completed. At this point, your wine is still saturated with CO2. Your next step, assuming your dealing with a wine kit, will be to rack the wine to another carboy, degas it, and add stabilizers.

Assuming we're looking at a week or less before doing that, there is not need to top up today. You'll be best served topping up after degassing and adding clearing chemicals.

 

[purpletongue]

This is after my second racking so it has already been degassed and hit with a dose of sulphite. I decided to go ahead and top up to as close as I could get to the stopper. About 1". Now I'm wondering when to time my third racking. It's been two weeks since my second racking. But it stayed in the first rack after primary for longer than the kit suggested. I think about 4 weeks.

 

[rustbucket]

OK, you're further along than I thought. In that case, you did the right thing in topping up. Is your intent to bottle within a few weeks or age your wine in the carboy.

 

[purpletongue]

I think I'd like to bottle it sooner and let it age in the bottle a few weeks before I start drinking it?

 

[purpletongue]

It definitely tastes more grown up, and there is about 1-2mm of sediment dropped in the carboy. Her nose still is a bit yeasty and funky but less so than 2 weeks ago. Maybe she'll benefit to the 3rd rack sooner rather than later to aerate a tad and help with the lingering ferment aromas? My kit instructions are much quicker for 4 weeks total and It looks like there's only 2 rackings and then the final where you bottle at that time. I'm thinking I'll do the third, let it sit until it smells and tastes ready. Then rack the final 4th time and bottle. This is more in line with the process in the book I'm reading. I guess this 4 week kit skips one racking essentially.

 

[sour_grapes]

You know that you can put the liquid from your SG testing back into the carboy, right?

 

[rustbucket]

You can rack it a third time, it wont hurt, but you don't have too. I filter my wines so after the wine is stabilized, I use my buon vino junior pump to filter it into the bottling bucket and bottle it. Many of the guys on this board age it in the carboy for six months to a year but I don't have the room for that so I bottle age my wines instead. They come out great.

You seem anxious to drink this wine that your making and I can fully understand your desire to do so if this is one of your first wines. If you do pop the cork early, don't get discouraged if it taste terrible. After bottling wine, it goes through a period of bottle shock. Give it a month, preferably three months in the bottle before trying it. That time period will make a difference.

Reflecting on my on wine making initiation, I thought that I made a terrible wine after finishing my first kit so I didn't serve it to anyone except immediate family. They hated it and refused to drink it. Now, I find the thought of throwing away wine abhorrent so, in order to free up the bottles for another batch, I drank all that terrible wine.

At around the ninth month, however, I realized that what I was drinking was quite good. My first assumption was that I had gotten use to the terrible wine's flavor but then I realized all that stuff I had been reading about the effect of aging was what I had experienced. Unfortunately, I only had 3 bottles left when I came to this realization.

So drink your wine when ever you can't stand to wait another day, but don't get discouraged if it doesn't taste good or the people you serve it too avoid coming back to your house. Instead, make another batch of wine while you're drinking up the first batch. By the time you finish drinking your first batch, the second batch should be getting close to ready.

Like many forum members who have been making wine for awhile, I have a good wine inventory, about 300 bottles at present, so I can afford to wait until a batch of wine I've made has aged a year or two. I do open a few bottles in the first year. The first at the six month point and the second at the end of nine months. By then, I usually have a good idea of how the wine will ultimately develop and approximately how much more time it needs to fully mature.

 

[SpoiledRotten]

Rust bucket, you talk of the wine tasting horrible right after bottling. I’ve had one Merlot that was that bad, but I believe it was just sour grapes. Pun intended.
in fact, my wife and I will rack a glass for ourselves at the time of bottling (just for the sake of tasting). The only other wine kit that I’ve done that really needed some real time to age was a gewürztraminer. It was excellent after 6 months, and better after a year.

And to sour_grapes, I also read that the original poster didn’t realize they could reintroduce the testing wine sample back into the batch.

 

[winemaker81]

I use a Fermtech wine thief, which is wide enough to hold a hydrometer. I make sure it's clean, inside and out, and that the hydrometer is also clean. I rinse both in K-meta, shake off the excess, take the reading. The hydrometer wants to stick to the side, but patience wins out.

When done, the small lever on the bottom releases the wine so I press it against the inside of the carboy. Your air contact is as minimal as possible.