Clearing my homemade wine!
August 15, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
Up until now ( and bearing in mind I’m 2 weeks into the home made wine process ) the wine has looked a little bit like cloudy urine - not the most enchanting description, I appreciate, but true nevertheless!
So today was the day scheduled to add some clearing agents - to be more accurate Potassium Metabisulphite, Potassium Sorbate and a Fining Agent!
After adding each ingredient, the shout of the day was to stir the mixture vigorously for a few minutes! Luckily, I had the help of Chris Onslow who introduced the Pacman method of stirring!
All this completed - I can only report on two things.
Firstly, the wine is still very cloudy, but this shouldn’t be too suprising, as the vigorous stirring will have caused all the sediment to cloud up, and I guess the next step of the process takes two weeks, and the clarity should come in this time!
Secondly - the colour has changed already from an amber colour to a more grapey colour!
I’ll update on Monday!
Caution when reading Wine Making instructions!!
August 11, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
I was always taught to read instructions through, then read them again! If only I had listened!!!
So what i did wrong was - when I siphoned my home made wine into the glass carbouy, I “assumed” the sediment left behind would just sit in the pail, and the wine would be sediment free and ready for the secondary fermentation process to begin!
Having action/ed the siphoning, I noticed after 10 mins a fair amount of sediment grouping on the bottom of the glass carbouy. At this stage, i thought I should reread the instructions to see if this was normal!!
Alas, it’s not normal - what i should have done is use the racking tube and gauze on the end of the siphon tubing to filter out the sediment - obvious when you think about it!!! Further disaster - I could not find the needed racking tube or gauze!! So I improvised - using an old shirt, I siphoned the home made wine back through to the pail, then respiphoned ( again through the shirt ) back into the glass carbouy. Unconventional, but it seems to have done the trick.
The resulting wine is now air tight and looking decidedly clearer already!
So the advice? Read the instructions clearly, reread the instructions before each step, and make sure you understand what is happening at each step!!!
