Thunder_Chicken
Well-Known Member
Just finished racking. The amount of lees was incredible! There was a full inch of purple gunk at the bottom of the carboy along with the oak cubes. Even then, when I racked the wine back into the cleaned carboy there was already a lot of junk settled out in my bucket. The chitosan makes lees fall like crazy, and they stick to glass and plastic like crazy.
Be prepared with at least a full 750 mL bottle of a similar wine for topping off at this point. I lost a lot due to the racking and the inability to pull anymore without taking a lot of lees. With that and the oak absorption, and the extra top-off to get the level up into the carboy neck, I had to give it an entire bottle plus maybe two ounces of water. Something that might help during racking would be to use a nylon mesh bag over your racking cane to keep some of the odd solid oak bits out. The lees are largish particles for the most part and that would probably let you rack more wine.
Well, anyway, that's about it until bottling time. I packed the carboy away nice and safe and I'll do my best to forget it for a while. I need to get busy collecting wine bottles.
Be prepared with at least a full 750 mL bottle of a similar wine for topping off at this point. I lost a lot due to the racking and the inability to pull anymore without taking a lot of lees. With that and the oak absorption, and the extra top-off to get the level up into the carboy neck, I had to give it an entire bottle plus maybe two ounces of water. Something that might help during racking would be to use a nylon mesh bag over your racking cane to keep some of the odd solid oak bits out. The lees are largish particles for the most part and that would probably let you rack more wine.
Well, anyway, that's about it until bottling time. I packed the carboy away nice and safe and I'll do my best to forget it for a while. I need to get busy collecting wine bottles.