Primary fermentation

[niles]

Hi,

I've read on a few wine making sites that all wines should be started not under airlock but in a primary fermenting bin this allows the yeast to take in oxygen which they need to reproduce, then after about 4 days transferred to a secondary vessel with an airlock to start the process of converting sugar to alcohol.

The WOWs and other juice wines I've made I just put all the ingredients in a demijohn and off we go, anybody know whether I'd get a better end result fermenting as above.

I presume that I would have to rack into the secondary rather than just pouring it in.

Cheers

 

[sueelleker]

If you're using solids (fruit,vegetables etc) start them off in a bin; but if it's just juices a demijohn is fine.
I'm fairly new to this game, but I've been making juice wines for a couple of years with no problems.

 

[Moley]

Strictly speaking, you might get things off to a better start if everything spent its first few days in a bucket.

However, if I'm making something like a juice wine with no solid matter, all of mine go straight into DJs or other closed fermenters under airlock.

My counter-argument would be that the transfer from bucket to closed fermenter is an unnecessary opportunity for infection.