Help! Wine hasn't cleared.

andycole · Oct 22, 2014

H. All. I expect that's quite a common thread title!

I am a fairly experienced brewer, although I am making my first wine in 2 years.
I have a selection Barolo 30 bottle kit and I have got to the stage where the wine should be clear and I rack it. But the wine was not clear. When I opened the fermenter to put in the siphon tube, there was sediment floating on top, which I thought was unusual, and the wine has lots of tiny floating particles in it, it is not clear at all. What could have gone wrong? And more importantly, how can I fix it?

I have just looked over the instructions of the previous step of stabilising and clearing, and I am sure I did everything correctly. It mentions the importance of proper degassing, and I used a stirrer mounted in an electric drill to stir it very vigorously for several minutes.

What can I do?

thanks

Andy.

Chippy_Tea · Oct 22, 2014

Did you degas in the same direction or did you give it a couple of seconds in one direction then a couple in the opposite direction for a minute or two?

My last wine cleared very slowly so i degassed it again, i don't think my drill had much charge in it originally as the second time there was a lot more CO2 being removed, i added more fining and it seems to be clearing nicely.

andycole · Oct 23, 2014

I stirred it all in the same direction, that is, the drill was going clockwise all the time, but I was moving the stirrer about a lot, even though the wine was all spinning fast in a clockwise 'whirlpool'.

So, is it a good idea to do another degassing cycle now, or is it too late?

Thanks
Andy

Chippy_Tea · Oct 23, 2014

I would give it another go and do it in both directions.

andycole · Oct 24, 2014

Yes, thanks, I have done so and put it somewhere cool. How long should I give it before checking again?

Andy

Chippy_Tea · Oct 25, 2014

That depends on how desperate you are to drink it. :lol:

andycole · Oct 30, 2014

I have just checked a glassful of this and we are back on track! :). Wine is very clear in a glass now and tastes great! There was a definite sharp tang before, which I thought was probably CO2.

Phew!

I think I am going to have a go at a WOW variant now. Something to drink while this expensive kit is maturing!

Thanks for the help.

Andy.

Chippy_Tea · Oct 30, 2014

Try an easy RosÃ© wine, everyone that has tried mine thinks its great.

Easy RosÃ© wine (one of our favourites)

1 litre Red grape juice (Tesco)

1 litre Apple Juice (Tesco)

800g Sugar.

1 tsp Tannin or a mug of very strong black tea. (3 bags stirred every couple of minutes as you put the rest of the ingredients together)

1 tsp Yeast (i use youngs super wine yeast compound)

1 tsp Yeast Nutrient.

1 tsp Pectolase.

1 tsp Glycerene.

1 tsp citric acid or juice of one lemon. (optional)

Scaff · Oct 30, 2014

Chippy_Tea said:
Try an easy RosÃ© wine, everyone that has tried mine thinks its great.

Easy RosÃ© wine (one of our favourites)

1 litre Red grape juice (Tesco)

1 litre Apple Juice (Tesco)

800g Sugar.

1 tsp Tannin or a mug of very strong black tea. (3 bags stirred every couple of minutes as you put the rest of the ingredients together)

1 tsp Yeast (i use youngs super wine yeast compound)

1 tsp Yeast Nutrient.

1 tsp Pectolase.

1 tsp Glycerene.

1 tsp citric acid or juice of one lemon. (optional)

Chippy, do you add water to that recipe to make it up to 4.5ltrs or leave it at 2ltr.

Thanks

Scaff

Chippy_Tea · Oct 31, 2014

Yes 2 litres of juice and the rest is water.

andycole · Oct 31, 2014

Chippy_Tea said:
Try an easy RosÃ© wine, everyone that has tried mine thinks its great.

Yes, I think I will. I also fancy the Apple/Pear/Grape juice that someone mentioned on the WOW thread. Pear wine, gotta be delicious, hasn't it?
I worked out that 1 gallon would cost less than a fiver, although I'd have to spend more than that to get larger quantities of the ingredients, so I may as well make 2 different ones and bring down the cost per gallon :)

Andy

Chippy_Tea · Oct 31, 2014

If that's Apple/Pear/Grape in a single carton don't bother its been discussed before and does not make good wine, you need a litre of grape juice (for the body) and a litre of another 100% juice, i have found the red grape juice tastes fine with a carton of apple as the red grape juice is quite strong before fermenting.

andycole · Nov 1, 2014

Oh, that's a disappointment about the pear. Are there any other varieties with pear juice that work? I know that welch do a white grape, apple and pear, although I am sure that's not 100 percent juice either.

Andy

Chippy_Tea · Nov 1, 2014

Tesco do a apple and pear juice, I have just bottled a wine made from a litre of wgj and a litre of apple and pear juice.

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