Valpolicella Racking, Stabilizing, and Degassing

Today, I racked, stabilized, and degassed the Valpolicella wine.  The kit instructions are to do this at day 14, but this is day 19.  I let the wine sit an extra five days because the fermentation was not quite complete at day 14.


After the usual sterilization of equipment, I transferred the wine to a clean carboy via autosiphon, without incident.  During this 'racking' step, I took a sample for a tasting.  Well, well, this is nice stuff.  This wine is dry and gentle.  There are woody and nutty tones with a hint of almond.  The tannins are noticeable at the end.  I have hopes for a very nice table wine that will pair well with pasta dishes.

Tasting.  Note-taking is important when it comes to stuff like this.

The specific gravity was 0.990.  From the starting point, this gives approximately 16% alcohol.  Yes, it's pretty dry.


The next step is the addition of potassium metabisulfite, which is provided with the kit.  Out of curiosity, I used my little portable balance to measure the mass of K₂S₂O₅.  The mass of K₂S₂O₅ was 4.4 g.  For comparison, I weighed a Campden tablet.  It was 0.6 g.  The recommended use of Campden tablets is 1 tablet per gallon of wine.  This is a 23 L kit, which is about 6 gallons.  6 gallons x 0.6 g per gallon = 3.6 g worth of Campden tablets.  So, this amount isn't too far off.

When you add the K₂S₂O₅ to the wine, SO₂ gas is formed (see picture).    The chemistry of this step is quite straightforward, and one of these days I'm going to write a blog post about it.

SO₂ bubbles.  You can get rid of the excess gas by stirring vigorously.

After the K₂S₂O₅, I added potassium sorbate and then a small packet of kieselsohl.  Tomorrow, I complete the addition of clarification agents, and then I wait three weeks until bottling.

Rhubarb Wine: Interim Satisfaction

Twelve days ago, I started the rhubarb wine.  I've been out of town for half of that time.  Today, I got around to checking on the progress.  When I opened the lid on the plastic bucket and looked at the surface, I could tell that fermentation was on the tail end.  There just wasn't a lot of "activity" in terms of bubbles.  I quickly sterilized a 3 gallon carboy and my auto-siphon and got to work racking the wine into a carboy.

Some observations:

1. Specific gravity = 1.012.  The initial s.g. was 1.097.  Therefore, the approximate alcohol content at this point is somewhere between 13.0 and 13.5 %.  (It's getting close to being done!)
2. The colour!  There is a nice peachy pink colour now.  I thought the colour had been totally  bleached by the campden tablets, but there might be something else going on.
3. The taste!  (Naturally, I tested it!)  There was no tartness at all, just a mild rhubarb flavour, along with a gentle grape taste from the concentrate that I added.  This has the potential to be a very nice dessert wine.

Front: Rhubarb wine, with some colour.  

Back: Mead, just prior to adding kieselsohl.

Mead v.1 has been sitting in a carboy for about 12 days as well, and there was a nice build up of lees at the bottom.  I racked it into another carboy and then added the kieselsol, which is step 1 of the finings.  And, I sampled the mead too.  It's getting better!  The taste has mellowed out a little and I think it will be really nice when it is chilled.