I have done a few wine expert kits now and always follows instructions to the letter. I am confused a little though on one of the stages. I was going to email wine expert as their replies are usually quite good but wanted opinions on the forum too.
Upon racking from primary to secondary it states you should "leave most of the sediment behind". Ok, fair enough. However the "sediment" also happens to contain all of the oak that was added at the beginning of primary fermentation. All of the chips have sunk by then.
This suggests that the oak is no longer required from secondary onwards. Is that really correct? Especially for some of the kits which promise heavy oak.
To be honest I ignored this instruction on the last kit (estate series Lodi ranch). Although I left a lot of the sediment behind I did manually scoup out most of the oak and tipped it into the secondary fermenter.
I had read somewhere that some people don't even add the oak until bulk ageing state.
Interested in opinions. To me it makes more sense to add the oak at the later stages when ageing.....surely? Or is it just personal preference as to how oaky you want the finished wine?
Upon racking from primary to secondary it states you should "leave most of the sediment behind". Ok, fair enough. However the "sediment" also happens to contain all of the oak that was added at the beginning of primary fermentation. All of the chips have sunk by then.
This suggests that the oak is no longer required from secondary onwards. Is that really correct? Especially for some of the kits which promise heavy oak.
To be honest I ignored this instruction on the last kit (estate series Lodi ranch). Although I left a lot of the sediment behind I did manually scoup out most of the oak and tipped it into the secondary fermenter.
I had read somewhere that some people don't even add the oak until bulk ageing state.
Interested in opinions. To me it makes more sense to add the oak at the later stages when ageing.....surely? Or is it just personal preference as to how oaky you want the finished wine?
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