Cold Crash Red Wine

[johnsonbrew]

I am getting ready to bottle my Zinfandel kit wine that came with some fine oak shavings (not entirely sure why they didn't use cubes) and there seems to be a lot of sediment in my wine after racking from primary to secondary. I was wondering if I can cold crash to get the sediment to settle further like I do in my beer and then use paint strainer bags to filter as much of the sediment out as I can. This is only my second batch and I think I will be doing more in the future so I may be investing in a filtering system to help with this. Are there any other tricks I can use to help keep as much sediment out of my bottles as I can?

 

[pumpkinman2012]

I cold stabilize all of my wine, reds and whites, it does help to speed up the sediment dropping, but more importantly it will help the tartrates to drop out of the wine, these are usually called Wine Diamonds. Cold stabilize for 2 weeks at 32° or below to speed the process up.
As far as removing the sediment, once the sediment is at the bottom of the carboy, use an auto siphon or vacuum pump to rack the wine off of it being careful to avoid picking up the sediment.

 

[dstelley]

don't mean to jump in on this thread but my question is very similar but more to do with timing.

I have racked my red wine once about 30 days ago. there is sediment on the bottom so I'd expect to rerack in a couple three weeks. I started late September early October.

Question is, when is it OK to cold crash? Is there a time when the wine is to "young"?

 

[DoctorCAD]

Do not under any circumstances filter a wine that is not perfectly clear. All you will do is plug up your filter and burn up your pump.

 

[pumpkinman2012]

I don't think that there really is a rule on the timing of cold stabilizing a wine, I usually wait until I've racked it a few times over the course of several months.

 

[Yooper]

I don't think that there really is a rule on the timing of cold stabilizing a wine, I usually wait until I've racked it a few times over the course of several months.

To jump on that that- when I cold stabilize, it's the last thing I do before bottling.

When I cold stabilize, I wait until the wine is fairly clear and no longer dropping any lees after 60 days or more. Then I move it, and suddenly more sediment will drop out. But for this to work well, the wine should be fairly clear to start with.

Sometimes, after about 4 months, if I don't get a clear wine I'll consider some finings like sparkelloid but that is rarely necessary with a bit of time.

 

[dstelley]

that's kind of what I was looking for. Its long done with fermentation, just aging. I'll rack it around the 2 week of January and again the end of Feb. At that point I'll stick it in the garage while its still cold enough to be effective. I don't have a beer fridge and no other way to chill a carboy except outside.

 

[johnsonbrew]

So here is what I ended up doing and the results. After the primary I racked into a 6 gallon plastic secondary, when I did this, I used a paint strainer bag to get rid of as much of the big stuff as possible. There were a lot of those oak finings I had described before. When it was time to rack again, I racked into a 6 gallon glass carboy and again used paint strainer bag. Less of the particulates but still there. Before I racked into my bottling bucket, I put the carboy in my keezer and crashed it for 2 days. When I racked from my cold carboy to my bucket I used a paint strainer bag again. Then when I bottled, I used two paint strainer bags. When I got done bottling, there was virtually no finings in my bags or at the bottom of the bucket. I am sure there was some left over yeast that made it through but none or very little of the big stuff I was most concerned about. So now my question is this. How much will the yeast in the bottles affect the overall taste and quality of the wine as it ages?

 

[Yooper]

So here is what I ended up doing and the results. After the primary I racked into a 6 gallon plastic secondary, when I did this, I used a paint strainer bag to get rid of as much of the big stuff as possible. There were a lot of those oak finings I had described before. When it was time to rack again, I racked into a 6 gallon glass carboy and again used paint strainer bag. Less of the particulates but still there. Before I racked into my bottling bucket, I put the carboy in my keezer and crashed it for 2 days. When I racked from my cold carboy to my bucket I used a paint strainer bag again. Then when I bottled, I used two paint strainer bags. When I got done bottling, there was virtually no finings in my bags or at the bottom of the bucket. I am sure there was some left over yeast that made it through but none or very little of the big stuff I was most concerned about. So now my question is this. How much will the yeast in the bottles affect the overall taste and quality of the wine as it ages?

Yeast is microscopic, so it is not impacted at all by straining.

What does happen is that using buckets and straining will ruin the wine by oxidizing it much faster and more thoroughly than any yeast would.

 

[johnsonbrew]

I can see how the buckets would expose the wine to oxygen more than a carboy, but it really is for a brief period of time since it is the last step as I bottle, but why is straining any different than filtering?

 

[Yooper]

I can see how the buckets would expose the wine to oxygen more than a carboy, but it really is for a brief period of time since it is the last step as I bottle, but why is straining any different than filtering?

Filtering is done with co2 or a pump to push the wine, and it's transferred to another vessel without any exposure to air. It goes from one vessel to another through sanitized plates without coming out into the open. Straining/filtering without a proper filtering set up would ruin the wine.

 

[pumpkinman2012]

Filtering is usually done in a sealed unit such as a vacuum pump and filter housing, no exposure to oxygen, while straining it is actually introducing and mixing oxygen into the wine.
The only time that it is safe to splash rack (straining the wine essentially splash racked the wine) is during fermentation when the co2 levels are high and protect the wine.