wine 101: step 11

STEP 11: Racking your wine.
I lied yesterday when I said there were three things you could do with your wine once first fermentation is over. Really, there are four. The one I missed is "just leave it." It's not mandatory that you remove the wine from the fermenting vessel immediately. So don't worry about if you don't have time to deal with it for awhile.

If you are gonna transfer your wine to bottles, for drinking or storage, this is how you should do it. Your bottles should all be cleaned as sterilized and ready to go. Now, as Sam alluded to, you can do the transfer two ways. The first is just to ladle it from the fermentation vessel to your bottles. That's pretty straightforward. The second is with the siphon. For those instructions, I refer you to Sam's explanation, which I think is pretty comprehensive.

However you get the wine from the vessel to the bottle, it needs to go through the strainer again in between. (Also, the funnel comes in handy here to keep the mess down.) Throughout fermentation, any fibers leftover from the fruit and the spent yeast will sink to the bottom of the fermentation vessel. As much as possible, try not to disturb that sediment. In fact, I often leave about a centimeter of wine in the bottom of my vessel that way I don't chance disturbing anything. Straining removes any sediment that did get disturbed and any other floating things.

I have mentioned "first fermentation" all through these instructions, which implies that there is something called "second fermentation." This is true. Once you've transferred your wine from the vessel to the bottles, you have started your wine into second fermentation. This is why it is very important that you DO NOT SEAL YOUR BOTTLES. Second fermentation is a very slow process, but it too releases carbon dioxide. If you seal your bottles, you may make them explode. Just close the lid on the top enough to keep bugs out of the bottle, but leave it open enough to let the gases out. I often open up my bottles every couple of days, just to make sure I haven't trapped anything by accident.

Second fermentation can be stopped by adding chemicals and such, but since I don't use any, it could take as much as a year to complete. This is handy for several reasons.

1. I really never have to worry about drinking my wine before it goes bad. I can "open" a bottle time and time again with no problem. Refrigerating your wine may change that dynamic, because it slows down and possibly stops second fermentation, but since I never do, I don't worry about it.

2. You can taste as your wine ages. It depends on how fast you drink your wine, but leaving it even for a week can change the nuance of your wine. Particularly, you should notice a change when your wine clarifies, as it naturally will do a week or so after being bottled. (This is really noticeable with white wines, but not as much with reds.)

And that's the basic of basics of making wine. I've got two more optional steps in the next two days, and then I'll go into some other good options, hints, and ideas for making homemade wine!

Also, I plan on having a Question Day at the end of the month, so if you're thinking of trying this out and I haven't been clear enough, let me know and I'll try to answer your questions.