1st rack of pineapple wine

[spacemonk32]

Hi all,

Started my 1st batch of wine 5 days ago with an SG of 1.115. double pitched champagne yeast into four gallons of primary 4 days ago. 2 days ago stirred primary and took SG reading of 1.100. Today stirred again and SG is at 1.051. I was planning on racking at a certain SG level 1.040? but now I am reading not to let it stay in primary for more than 7 days because of lees and off putting flavors. Should I rack to secondary no matter what the SG reading is? I will be racking into 1 gallon glass carboys

 

[mgonbrewlab]

The sooner you rack the first time, the sooner you need to rack the second time as you will start accumulating sediment sooner. If your fruit is in a bag you can remove that at 7 days and allow the wine to ferment mostly dry in your primary.

I personally tend to rack my wine somwhere between 1.00 - 1.03 since active fermentation prevents oxidation (it's OK if it splashes).

 

[Yooper]

Keep stirring until you get to 1.020 or less- then you can rack and airlock.

You don't have to worry about excess lees during active fermentation- the stirring of the fermentation activity means no real pressure is exerted on the lees, and the yeast is still alive.

Autolysis occurs when there is long term pressure on the yeast, or the yeast die of alcohol toxicity, and the yeast die and cannabilize each other.

 

[bernardsmith]

Also, If you rack too soon then you are likely to lose a large proportion of the yeast colony and that might mean that the fermentation will stall. Patience. You want to rack very close to when the active fermentation ceases and so little additional CO2 is being produced . And then rack every two or three months (this also helps remove CO2 that has been absorbed in the wine - and so will allow you to bottle without much concern for popping corks....