When To Bottle

[Chad123]

I am making 3 gallon batch of apple wine. The wine cleared by week 3, the wine as of now is 6 weeks old. My question is should i bulk age before bottling, if so, how long? Or is it ready to bottle now?

 

[vacuumpumpman]

When I do apple it is usually around 9 months or so before I bottle. Did you need to back sweeten at all ?

 

[Stefani]

If it is clear you can either age it in the bottle or bulk age it. When I first started I aged the wine in the bottle. Over 6-12 months I noticed sediment in the bottles. Now I age bulk age 6 months. This tends to eliminate more sediment.

For example I've make a 6 gallon kit. Bottle one gallon (five 750 ML bottles or ten 350ml or any combination there of). This first few bottles are my tester bottles. I would be able to open one up here and there over the next few months to monitor the wines progress.

Then I'll rack the remaining amount into a 5 gallon glass carboy. If there is any room then I'd top off with wine I just bottled. Then 6 months or so or when ever I feel its ready, I would bottle as few as 1 gallon or more. Any gallons that I decide not to bottle I would rack them into gallon jugs to let them age further.

Of course if I know I plan on keeping an amount in a jug or carboy for 6 months I'd add 1 Camden Tab per gallon.

The choice is always yours.

 

[Chad123]

When I do apple it is usually around 9 months or so before I bottle. Did you need to back sweeten at all ?

no sweetening yet, i wanted to wait till the wine mellowed out more. So both of you saying 6-9 months bulk aging, i read somewhere that fruit wines only improve with age up to 3-4months bulk aging, any longer than that theres no dramatic improvement.

 

[Chad123]

Hi, I'm making a 3 gallon batch of apple wine.
The wine cleared up nicely by week 3.
The wine is 6 weeks as of now.
My question is, should I bulk age the wine before bottling? If so, how long?
Or is it ready to bottle now?

 

[djrockinsteve]

Once the wine is fully cleared, rack off of sediment add a pinch of sulfite and age 6 months. Then add sorbate and back sweeten if you like. Wait a few weeks then bottle.

 

[vacuumpumpman]

no sweetening yet, i wanted to wait till the wine mellowed out more. So both of you saying 6-9 months bulk aging, i read somewhere that fruit wines only improve with age up to 3-4months bulk aging, any longer than that theres no dramatic improvement.

With that said - I would back sweeten now and let it age and re taste in a couple of months and then go from there.

 

[Stefani]

Well I do have some fruit wines that have been aging and clearing for more than 9 months. I will either bottle them or use them for "top off the carboy wines" for future batches.

 

[Stressbaby]

no sweetening yet, i wanted to wait till the wine mellowed out more. So both of you saying 6-9 months bulk aging, i read somewhere that fruit wines only improve with age up to 3-4months bulk aging, any longer than that theres no dramatic improvement.

I'm a newbie, but this has not been my experience.
Where did you read that, if I could ask?

 

[GreginND]

no sweetening yet, i wanted to wait till the wine mellowed out more. So both of you saying 6-9 months bulk aging, i read somewhere that fruit wines only improve with age up to 3-4months bulk aging, any longer than that theres no dramatic improvement.

And if you read it on the Internet it must be true!

I have an apple wine going on 12 years old and it keeps developing. Still old. I've been tasting several different fruit wines ltely that are aging beautifully at 6, 7, 10 years ( elderberry, grapefruit, plum, chokecherry, rhubarb, etc). With regards to bulk aging, the wines certainly age and continue to improve beyond a few months.

 

[DoctorCAD]

I opened a 4 year old bottle of blackberry last night. I did not back-sweeten it when bottling.

It has a fantastic berry taste, but a dry blackberry is something you really have to develop a taste for. By the end of the bottle, I did...

Taking 3 aspirin as I type.

 

[Chad123]

I'm a newbie, but this has not been my experience.
Where did you read that, if I could ask?

I read it in wine making maganize, not the internet.
It goes on about aging reds vs whites and one should only age a wine designed to be aged.
Idk looking advice whether that was true or not from peoples experiences with apple wine.

 

[Turock]

Apple wine is at it's best when it has some age on it--like 2 years. Bottling any non-kit wine in 6 months or less is always a risk because it may still have too much CO2 in it. Young apple wine is usually low on flavor,also, as opposed to allowing it to age before bottling.

There is also the problem of the wine not being fully stable in that time frame so sweetening and adding sorbate shouldn't be done so soon. Even tho the wine looks clear, it might not be as clear as you think and under certain conditions can become cloudy again. Many wines contain protein and even dirt and these can precipitate out and produce haze or sediment. Let it sit in the secondary for longer--at least 9 months. We don't bottle our apple until it's 1 year old--many times we let it age longer than that.

 

[Chad123]

Thanks everyone for the input gonna put some age on it and see how it goes