Ageing Problem

[robwrx]

Get yourself out and about around all the bottle banks. My local sainsburys has 6 full bottle banks and people have started filling trolleys (6 so far) next to the bottle bank much to my delight. I picked up 20 yesterday and another 10 today (feel a bit daft so just pick the ones off the top) and I'll be back in the morning to check again

I've had a go at that and picked up about a dozen bottles. So many bottles these days are screw top and it took some serious hunting to find what I did.

Yapp Brothers the wine merchants are just up the road so I'm going to have a go at begging them for some proper bottles.

Rob

[robwrx]

You need to look at your racking and topping up regime.....

these kits are designed to produce a gallon of finished wine, so you can top them off with water during these processes, they are meant to be topped up, just be careful to rack every drop apart from sediment. Racking too early creastes extra loss too. Ignore the timeline in the instructions, spreading it over a little longer period to allow sediment to drop completely wont hurt.

Looking through the instructions on several kits, they say "make up must to 4.5litres" and that the wine could be unbalanced if this is not adhered to. They also give an SG figure that I guess is calculated on using a volume of 4.5 litres. Most of my DJs hold 4.6-4.8 litres when full so I'm on to a loser straight away before I've even racked.

The kits also recommend starting the ferment in a bucket rather than a DJ so that is what I've been doing which means I've had to transfer to a DJ once fermentation has stopped otherwise the head space is too big and degassing and fining is easier in the DJ.

I haven't got the kit instructions in front of me but I'm pretty sure that both the Beaverdale and California Connoisseur kits say don't top up.

I also recall reading on another older thread about kits on this forum that a certain Mr "Lockwood1956" said "Follow the kit instructions, omitting no detail no matter how slight."

Rob

[robwrx]

What about using marbles? It's worked for me in the past anyway.

Thanks for the suggestion, I've just ordered 200 16mm glass marbles and will give it a go

Rob

[koomber]

Not that this has ever happened to me, but, I've HEARD that you need to be very careful when putting the marbles in case they crack the DJ. Also be careful when moving it around...

[NorthernWiner]

My only advice is to be careful with marbles. I used to use them, but once tipped a carboy into the sink to empty it and forgot the marbles were in there. This proved to be a less than brilliant move, as I spent the next hour carefully fishing glass marbles out of the sink disposal unit.

[Cellar_Rat]

I am beginning to think that washing up 100's of marbles up might be more trouble than getting the oil off

Please! I beg you bottle it before this thread gets completey out of hand when I mention that there are commercial wineries investing in huge plastic bags (100's and 1000's of liters) that can be burped a bit like a hot water bottle to remove the air!!

[lockwood1956]

I also recall reading on another older thread about kits on this forum that a certain Mr "Lockwood1956" said "Follow the kit instructions, omitting no detail no matter how slight."

love it

that was however, advice to a brand new winemaker.


The kits are designed to allow for a certain amount of topping up. Tim Vandergrift if I remember right told me it was in the order of up to 1 litre in 23 litre kits.

The instructions you refer to I believe say dont top up at the initial racking stage, but you MUST top up when the wine is finished. Water will work well enough, but a similar or very neutral wine will do the job perfectly. Topping off with similar wine will change the wine a teeny amount, almost imperceptably tunless a large amount was used....leaving it without topping up will totally destroy the wine in a fairly short time.

You say your DJ's are larger than 4.54 litres (some are 5 litres) this is ok, you can adjust the must to the right SG wirth the addition (it wont be much) of sugar solution.


hope that makes sense

regards
Bob

[Rich]

love it

that was however, advice to a brand new winemaker.

The kits are designed to allow for a certain amount of topping up. Tim Vandergrift if I remember right told me it was in the order of up to 1 litre in 23 litre kits.

I'm sure I've seen him say about 7% or so over concentrated to allow for topping up.

But.. that could be complete tosh that I've made up, or just thought I'd read.

[lockwood1956]

hmmm

7% would be 1.61 litres

[Mamgiowl]

My only advice is to be careful with marbles. I used to use them, but once tipped a carboy into the sink to empty it and forgot the marbles were in there. This proved to be a less than brilliant move, as I spent the next hour carefully fishing glass marbles out of the sink disposal unit.

LOL

I use a sieve, which makes washing them a doddle too

[robwrx]

love it

that was however, advice to a brand new winemaker.


The kits are designed to allow for a certain amount of topping up. Tim Vandergrift if I remember right told me it was in the order of up to 1 litre in 23 litre kits.

The instructions you refer to I believe say dont top up at the initial racking stage, but you MUST top up when the wine is finished. Water will work well enough, but a similar or very neutral wine will do the job perfectly. Topping off with similar wine will change the wine a teeny amount, almost imperceptably tunless a large amount was used....leaving it without topping up will totally destroy the wine in a fairly short time.

You say your DJ's are larger than 4.54 litres (some are 5 litres) this is ok, you can adjust the must to the right SG wirth the addition (it wont be much) of sugar solution.


hope that makes sense

regards
Bob

I am a brand new winemaker Bob. I only started making wine last October with my ill fated attempt at making white wine from very acidic under ripe red grapes from my garden.

Having read a lot of old posts on this forum I decided to have a go at your No.1 and No.2 wines (not very impressed with initial taste of first No.1 but it is probably too young still at 6 weeks but the No.2 is showing promise) and have now moved on to having a go at some kits. I still can't find anywhere in the kit instructions where it says about topping up but I will accept your advice and toss in the better part of a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc from my local supermarket.

All of the advice I have read says that theses wines will benefit enormously from ageing and to minimise temperature fluctuations a gallon is better than .75 litre. I live in a modern house where summer temperatures can fluctuate wildly so bulk storage would be better plus I will not have to find a home for dozens of bottles, just a few 1 gal DJs.

Cheers

Rob

[lockwood1956]

The advice not to alter instructions is to safegaurd newbies from making major mistakes early in the hobby. I'm pretty sure the directions state not to top up after initial racking, but one should ALWAYS top up finished wine to prevent oxidation and/or spoilage, wines should never be stored with airspace above them.


Age will indeed help the wine.


I understand the concern regarding topping up altering flavour profiles, but the half a bottle of wine added will have much less impact than you might imagine.

Just dashing out the door to judge this evening, but will return to this a little later. (perhaps not tonight though, may be a late evening)


regards
Bob

[Rich]

Maybe the instructions don't mention topping up.. But they also tell you to bottle it after 4 or 6 weeks. They don't say about bulk ageing, which is where you need minimal airspace.

In fact, not many even talk about filtering I think either, which would be a good idea imo.

[lockwood1956]

Hi Rob

I'm back from judging at Doncaster winemakers society, where one winemaker thinks im the bees knees and all the other entrants think I'm a buffoon

Some thoughts that hopefully will help you.

Sort all your demijohns into size and label them. alwways transfer/rack to the largest ones, and on next racking, rack to smaller one and so on and so forth, so you are eliminating the need for too much top up. this should help a little.

I believe that seing as you are starting in a bucket, you should bulk up the size of the kit to 5 litres, by the addition of red grape juice, or sugar syrup prepared to SG 1.080 (you could also adjust the acidity, but it really wont make too much difference) this way it will be easier to end up with exactly one gallon. these additions will not spoil the kit, or indeed dramatically alter the end product.
the addition of 500ml of syrup/juice will not massively impact on the final wine.

or....

you could start as normal, and at each racking top up with red grape juice, this will affect the alc content, but again the difference will not be very noticeable.


The instructions given with kits are a cover all, and there is licence to adapt. I wouldn't normally recomend modification, but your circumstances dictate that you need to alter things slightly.

The most important thing is that finished wine needs to be bottled or topped up, and any instructions that advise you otherwise are simply wrong. The Vineco instructions ask you not to top up but they are expecting it going into bottle within a week.

Not topping up during active ferment is totally fine, as the CO2 produced by the active ferment protects the wine.


hope that helps
regards
Bob

[robwrx]

Sort all your demijohns into size and label them. alwways transfer/rack to the largest ones, and on next racking, rack to smaller one and so on and so forth, so you are eliminating the need for too much top up. this should help a little.

I believe that seing as you are starting in a bucket, you should bulk up the size of the kit to 5 litres, by the addition of red grape juice, or sugar syrup prepared to SG 1.080 (you could also adjust the acidity, but it really wont make too much difference) this way it will be easier to end up with exactly one gallon. these additions will not spoil the kit, or indeed dramatically alter the end product.
the addition of 500ml of syrup/juice will not massively impact on the final wine.

or....

you could start as normal, and at each racking top up with red grape juice, this will affect the alc content, but again the difference will not be very noticeable.


The instructions given with kits are a cover all, and there is licence to adapt. I wouldn't normally recomend modification, but your circumstances dictate that you need to alter things slightly.

The most important thing is that finished wine needs to be bottled or topped up, and any instructions that advise you otherwise are simply wrong. The Vineco instructions ask you not to top up but they are expecting it going into bottle within a week.

Not topping up during active ferment is totally fine, as the CO2 produced by the active ferment protects the wine.

Hi Bob

I hope you had a good night last night, it sounds a lot of fun.

Yes, they are great suggestions and they help clear things up enormously. I only noticed that the DJs are of different capacities when I got wet feet whilst racking. The second DJ was a little smaller than the first and I was too busy trying not to suck up the lees to notice the overflow until too late

I will mark up the DJs with their capacities and could I suggest that someone does a Do's and Don'ts sticky for wine kits with this information as I'm sure I'm not the only person that would find this very helpful.

Many thanks

Rob