ExpatBrewer
Junior Member
I'm a beer brewer but thought I'd have a crack at making a cheap wine kit - picked up a Cantina Shiraz/Merlot kit for half price.
Fermented in my fermentation fridge and ended up at an FG of 0.996. I did the degassing and stabilising as instructed and then added the finings also as per instructions. The implication was that it should be crystal clear and ready for racking and bottling a couple of days later. Well it's eight or nine days later now and it's as murky as it ever was.
I read pretty much everywhere that ultimately time will do the job and that eventually the wine will clear by itself. My concern is that the wine is currently in a fermenter (as opposed to a carbouy) and so there's a fair amount of headspace sitting above the wine. I read that this could be a concern with regard to oxidisation though I am puzzled by this assertion because sulphites are of course added which I understand scavenge up any free oxygen and are there, in part to prevent the wine oxidising. ?
Anyway, while I realise there might be some advantages to bulk conditioning I'd ideally like to get the wine out of the fermenter and into bottles for aging so I can have my fermenter back in service!
Ideas? / Thoughts?
Fermented in my fermentation fridge and ended up at an FG of 0.996. I did the degassing and stabilising as instructed and then added the finings also as per instructions. The implication was that it should be crystal clear and ready for racking and bottling a couple of days later. Well it's eight or nine days later now and it's as murky as it ever was.
I read pretty much everywhere that ultimately time will do the job and that eventually the wine will clear by itself. My concern is that the wine is currently in a fermenter (as opposed to a carbouy) and so there's a fair amount of headspace sitting above the wine. I read that this could be a concern with regard to oxidisation though I am puzzled by this assertion because sulphites are of course added which I understand scavenge up any free oxygen and are there, in part to prevent the wine oxidising. ?
Anyway, while I realise there might be some advantages to bulk conditioning I'd ideally like to get the wine out of the fermenter and into bottles for aging so I can have my fermenter back in service!
Ideas? / Thoughts?
