A couple of months ago I made a Ken Ridge Cabernet/Shiraz and having tried it very early I'm over the moon with it. Although it was lovely I had some ideas for improving it, first of which was the lowly 12% ABV from it. For me a full bodied red should be around 13% so I decided to have a little fiddle.
The Shiraz kit was delivered today so I popped off to Asda for some supplies. I poured in the grape concentrate, rinsed out the bag with 2L of water and then poured in 4L of pressed red grape juice. I then topped up with another 8L of water. As expected this took me to 24L but I'm not overly concerned about that as I think the 4L of juice will more than cover what I was looking for. I checked the OG and got 1.095, which adjusted to take account of the hydrometer error is 1.090.... BINGO. As long as it ferments out to the 0.995 mark I'll be right on the money.
The instructions say to add the oak chips etc at the primary stage, but I've decided to hold them back for the secondary. I'm going to give it 2 weeks in the primary, again contrary to the instructions, and then I'll transfer into the secondary for 2 weeks and add the oak chips etc. After that I'll de-gas the wine and add the stopper etc. I'll give it a day or so then de-gas again, repeat until confident it's done. Once finished I'll add the finings and stick it in the depths of my loft for a few months.
Do you think it's worthwhile racking it again before adding the finings, to get rid of the oak chips etc, or will it be better to leave them in the wine for ageing etc? It'll be at least 3 months though.
The Shiraz kit was delivered today so I popped off to Asda for some supplies. I poured in the grape concentrate, rinsed out the bag with 2L of water and then poured in 4L of pressed red grape juice. I then topped up with another 8L of water. As expected this took me to 24L but I'm not overly concerned about that as I think the 4L of juice will more than cover what I was looking for. I checked the OG and got 1.095, which adjusted to take account of the hydrometer error is 1.090.... BINGO. As long as it ferments out to the 0.995 mark I'll be right on the money.
The instructions say to add the oak chips etc at the primary stage, but I've decided to hold them back for the secondary. I'm going to give it 2 weeks in the primary, again contrary to the instructions, and then I'll transfer into the secondary for 2 weeks and add the oak chips etc. After that I'll de-gas the wine and add the stopper etc. I'll give it a day or so then de-gas again, repeat until confident it's done. Once finished I'll add the finings and stick it in the depths of my loft for a few months.
Do you think it's worthwhile racking it again before adding the finings, to get rid of the oak chips etc, or will it be better to leave them in the wine for ageing etc? It'll be at least 3 months though.
