Which wine to top up with?

[Corey73]

I have a sassafras in the primary now that is at 1.030. My question is , when I rack to secondary, what wine/juice should i top up with? Or should I just use water as I don't know of any wine/juice that is close to Sassafras. Any and all comments grestly appreciated.

 

[joea132]

You may have to split your batches up into smaller containers. What volume do you currently have and in what kind of container(s)?

 

[Corey73]

5 gallon fermenting bucket and 5 gallon carboy

 

[joea132]

4- one gallon jugs and a few magnum bottles. You can buy the bungs at your local home brew store most likely. Start drinking carlo rossi!

 

[joea132]

Alternately you can buy a 3 gallon carboy.

 

[Corey73]

sounds like a plan... thanks

 

[Runningwolf]

Corey thats why a lot of use will try to make an extra 1/2-1 gallon of what ebver we're making so we'll have some left to top up with. The extra's we age in smaller jugs or bottles until we need them. They are also good for doing bench trails with for tasting/sweetening.

 

[ffemt128]

Corey thats why a lot of use will try to make an extra 1/2-1 gallon of what ebver we're making so we'll have some left to top up with. The extra's we age in smaller jugs or bottles until we need them. They are also good for doing bench trails with for tasting/sweetening.

Ditto what Dan said.

 

[winemaker_3352]

Corey thats why a lot of use will try to make an extra 1/2-1 gallon of what ebver we're making so we'll have some left to top up with. The extra's we age in smaller jugs or bottles until we need them. They are also good for doing bench trails with for tasting/sweetening.

I agree as well...

 

[Flem]

It's too late to make extra for this batch. I would rack to a smaller vessel or top off by using sanitized marbles. I would not want to add water to your wine at this point.

 

[Corey73]

I have a couple of empty apple juice bottles that were going to be for loquat, but I guess i could use those and buy a 3 gal carbouy. Thanks for all the replies.

 

[robie]

Like Flem said, you can use some clear, non-painted, sanitized marbles, depending on how much you need to top up. They work best when you don't need a whole lot of marbles.

 

[joea132]

Get ready to buy a boatload. I did the calculation a while ago. I think its like 1800 marbles to a gallon....I only know because I had the same problem but ended up splitting into smaller batches.

 

[robie]

Get ready to buy a boatload. I did the calculation a while ago. I think its like 1800 marbles to a gallon....I only know because I had the same problem but ended up splitting into smaller batches.

Yep, that's way too many. You need to use another wine for topping, or a smaller container. Ex: If you have a 6-gallon carboy that's down close to a gallon, rack to a 5-gallon carboy and save the excess for topping off later.