Secondary fermentation is here! First wine update for those who care

[u/Ketchupcharger]

Hello dear people,

So I have just finished pressing my must after the primary fermentation into the secondary ferment vessel and I just had to post an update because I'm so proud of myself for not fucking it up (so far).

This has been a journey, and I have been adapting and growing and learning along the way and I think its a small miracle that this is still going well.

So I bought around 40kg of grapes around 22.09 and 20kg of them arrived on 24th. The seller insisted on selling via courier, and I was way too far from him to be able to realistically and not expensively get there. So the other 20kg got fucked up and the guy sent it to me essentially next week. Oh well. Tough shit. I mean I was glad he was willing to just send me another 20kg for no additional compensation (I do hope he got some refund from the courier).

So I fermented the first 20kg, for around a week with stems and everything, than pressed, added the campden tablet (actually I did that a day after, when it managed to go a little bad and develop a thin film of Kahn, but it restarted!). Then a week later I got the second batch, repeated the whole process and just now I filled my 25L vessel for the first time AND IT DIDNT BREAK OR SHATTER im so happy I could cry.

Not to mention fermentation restarted! Oh bliss!

I now have around 35 liters of wine in second fermentation and I'm going to need an army of bottles soon.

[u/AnybodyZestyclose112]

Move to a smaller container if you don't have enough wine to top up, this amount of air will spoil it

[u/HighOnLife → u/AnybodyZestyclose112]

Is the space not filled with co2 not air?

[u/AnybodyZestyclose112 → u/HighOnLife]

To some extent and it's ok to have some airspace before fermentation is fully done, but within a week or so you should have it topped up more if it's not very active

[u/DonGrappote]

Love it. I thought this might be you when I saw the title and the thumbnail. Did you taste it when you were racking off? Great to see it's going well and you're enjoying it.

Incidentally, if it was me I would probably put a touch more water in the near camera airlock - it doesn't look like there's very much in there. I usually fill mine so the bottom third of both chambers has water in. You can sanitise that water as well to prevent any backflow from contaminating the batch.

[u/Ketchupcharger → u/DonGrappote]

Heyyyy! I think I basically made this post just for you lol, I was hoping you'd tune in in the comments.

I originally bought the vessel thinking it was 15L (what the seller said), and my surprise when I filled it up and it was closer to 25. So even though I did 40kg grapes I was missing some headspace, so I added a liter or two of my previous red wine still in fermentation. So this big carboy is quite frankenstein by my standards, its like 3 wines mixed together lol, and it somehow works (for now!)

I did taste it and I found it quite weird, very... tanniney, I might need to backsweeten in a day or two (recently I work late and had almost no time for all this).

Thanks I did top off the airlock. Even though the wine in that 10L carboy seems to be doing very fine visually the airlock ain't moving so I thought it might be too much water weight, and took some off, but that didn't seem to help, so now its back to normal level.

I actually was one campden tablet short yesterday (for the second 20kg batch) so I just mixed the campdened previous wine with this, hoping that the overall level would be enough and so far it seems ok! There is pressure in airlock and some tiny bubbles in the vessel. I'll be watching it closely and will do my best to make it to the finish line.

For now my new headache is getting somehow like 80 wine bottles (I ain't paying, I'm Polish and i collect every jar I use, and reuse them for preserves, I'm not gonna change that for wine)

[u/DonGrappote → u/Ketchupcharger]

Aha I'm honoured!

So, the tannins you're tasting are probably from the initial mash you did with the stems, since they're full of tannins usually. Some styles of wine use this to their advantage so it's not necessarily a bad thing but it probably means you're going to have to leave it for quite a while in the bottle to let them age. Adding sugar at this point will just mask it, or more likely just make it more alcoholic if it hasn't done fermenting, in which case you will need to add more to back-sweeten at the end - which might restart the fermentation, etc etc, and it all gets a bit silly trying to chase the tannin flavour away with something that probably won't be that effective for that purpose anyway. What you could try is fining with egg whites as this should reduce the tannin content by scooping up the heavier molecules into the egg white mass. You'll probably need 3-4 egg whites for your 25L carboy. 3 if they're big, 4 if they're small. See this site for comprehensive instructions. If you happen to not eat eggs for whatever reason there are other options but egg whites should do a good job.

I shoudn't worry too much about the campden tablet you were missing. I doubt the addition of the previous batch will have done much but dilute the so2, but if you keep an eye on it and make sure you have campden tablets or another source of so2 available to add when you next rack it and it will probably be no worse for it.

In the case of the bottles, I suppose your only solution is to either get drinking and empty some yourself, or ask around local hotels if they've got a glass bin you can rummage through. I got all the champagne bottles I've ever needed out of the rubbish bin from a local wedding. Just get hold of some good strong steriliser/cleaner and make an afternoon of it.

[u/Ketchupcharger → u/DonGrappote]

Thank you for this thoughtful reply ❤️

I think it might turn out to be a good thing as theres no way I could drink that much quickly, so I'm fine with waiting.

Im kind of apprehensive about the eggwhite thing, I think it might off the flavor a little.

Well overall I'm quite glad, as long as it's not spoiled or my carboy doesn't decide to end it's 50yo life it should be fine, I just need to wait it out

[u/DonGrappote → u/Ketchupcharger]

Fair enough! There are other benefits to fining though, so do consider it, even if you just end up doing it as an experiment for some of the batch. You don't have to make the decision immediately. It shouldn't impart off flavours as all the egg white (or other fining material) settles to the bottom and then you rack off, leaving the fining in the demijohn with the lees and whatever has been trapped in the protein structure of the fining. Even if it does, think of it as a trade off with a net positive in flavour profile: bear in mind that even though some tannins benefit from ageing, there may be things in there that give it a shelf life that runs out before the good flavours you're looking for have a chance to develop. It also often will improve the look and mouthfeel of the wine as well.

[u/guntheretherethere]

I think you should add juice to reduce the air exposure on the top of the wine, get it up within an inch or so of the airlock

[u/Ketchupcharger → u/guntheretherethere]

Yeah I had to sacrifice the smaller one to fill the bigger one, unfortunately I don't have any more to top

[u/DonGrappote → u/Ketchupcharger]

Anything that will fit in the bung hole and which can be sterilised can be used to raise the liquid level by displacement. An old trick is to use clean glass marbles since they're quite easy to pour out afterwards. It's well worth doing if you can.