First wine kit in a while

[stz]

Hello HBF.
I have made cider, wine, mead, beer, yoghurt, sourdough and hot sauce over the years. In an attempt to get my girlfriend to show interest I've bought what seemed like quite a pricey wine kit. Previously I've made all sorts of wine, usually without a secondary unless carrying out extended conditioning where being off the yeast was advisable. From memory I used to just use a primary and allow it to drop, rack to a bottling bucket allowing it to degas on the way, fine and stabilise allowing to stand overnight then bottle. Reading the instructions all seems well, but I'm sure there are ways to make life easier and optimise this. It seems to want me to move it all over the place and I've never been a fan of secondaries. I propose ..

- Primary ferment with temperature control (22C?) until done.
- Cold crash to drop yeast/oak/whatever is in suspension.
- Rack to co2 purged vessel, degas, stabilise and fine.
- Cold crash prior to packaging.

I don't want to cock it up. For those who do this thing often, is this acceptable? Also would appreciate advice on fermentation temperatures and if the measly 5g packet of wine yeast supplied is sufficient for the 23L batch size? It quotes a 30 bottle take off. Isn't there loss to trub?

 

[Chippy_Tea]

If its an expensive wine kit i would follow the instructions it would be a shame to make it your way and it not be as good as it could be, the cheap stuff i make is done from start to finish in the first FV and it works well but i guess that isn't helping here. aunsure....

 

[stz]

I've had a good read online and apparently there are gross lees and fine lees. The gross lees are the fruit bits. The fine lees are the yeast sediment. Apparently leaving wine on the gross lees for longer than a week isn't recommended in all cases because the fruit begins to break down and decay leading to off flavours. This is why it is telling me to rack to secondary after a week. The fine lees are a preference, some wine makers prefer the flavour contribution introduced after three weeks, but generally wine is racked off the fine lees after two weeks. The term to look for on bottles is apparently sur lie. White wines are fermented cooler, this takes longer and thus generally the choice and flavour impact of when to take it off the fine lees is a bigger deal. I'm just a bit agog at needing three vessels for a wine kit? Already used to ignoring beer kit instructions! The kit manufacturers are clearly trying to get me to follow a gross lees, fine lees, bulk maturation system which I might do for the crack. Well, feel like I learnt something today anyway.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Thanks for sharing. :thumba:

 

[tonyhibbett]

Fruit bits are fine pulp sediment. Gross lees are the thick layer of mostly dead yeast from the primary fermentation. Both are detrimental to wine quality. In a wine kit there would be no fruit bits.

 

[stz]

@tonyhibbett in your opinion as it is a wine kit would you still rack following primary and secondary? I'm guessing oxygen pick up isn't as big of a deal with red wines? Also ferm temp, 23-25C?

 

[tonyhibbett]

As a rule, I rack at sg 1010 to get rid of the gross lees and continue to ferment at a slightly lower temperature until the wine starts to clear. You can leave it on a thin layer of yeast to develop the flavour. Red wines tend to clear quite quickly on their own due to their higher tannin content, but whites usually need fining.

 

[stz]

I mostly followed the instructions. For ease I didn't use my fermentation chamber, just insulation, especially considering the time of the year. It took about a week to reach .0098, racked to secondary, left for another week, .0095, stabilised, fined, racked to a bottling bucket. It threw sediment at every rack. I felt it tasted better prior to fining? Fining seemed to strip quite a lot of the body, appreciable tannins and fruit character out. It had noticeably more oak character before fining, to my taste but not my girlfriends. The balance was a bit more acidic at first which I preferred, the acidity seems to have dropped off and left it feeling slightly sweet?