Re: Help! Did I screw up my first batch?

mail box wrote:
On 9/14/2008 6:27 PM, alphajerk wrote:
Hi guys, thanks so much for the replies. I haven't touched, it but
most of the stuff has fallen away now. I was just following the
directions and timeline of when to add stuff, as this is my very first
try at making wine and i don't know any better! There was nothing
floating in it when I added the extra stuff. I really whipped the crap
out of it with the drill mounted spoon, I'm thinking a little too
forcefully. The directions just made me paranoid about "if I don't
stir it enough at this stage it won't clear properly." I think I'll be
a little more gentle next time. It's almost like I made a meringue out
of the yeast and it puffed up and floated to the top or something.
Hopefully, I'm still on track here. Thanks for the responses, they
made me feel better.

Yeah, wine kits have to deal with the lowest common denominator as far as their instructions go, and they also don't want to scare off the beginning wine maker by recommending a nice long bulk aging period (i.e. New wine maker: "What!?! I have to wait 9 months for this kit to finish? Forget it, I'm buying a few bottles right now.") So the kit instructions get you through the process at the speed of what they figure is their new customer's attention span, rather than at the speed of what's happening in the carboy. As you make more wine and learn more about the process you'll find ways to modify the instructions which will make a better wine from the same kit.

I think that their directions about stirring thoroughly come in part from their need to have you degas the wine, since it's being made to such an aggressive schedule. If you let it bulk age a bit this will happen naturally. It'll also happen if you rack to a bottling bucket and bottle from there, rather than bottling from your fermenter.


Cheers,
Ken Taborek

Good advice. In addition, from my experience, always check their website for the latest instructions. I've had two or three that had updated instructions that was off enough, it could have been a problem, I guess. Luckily I called on a problem with the first one and was told of the updated on the web. So from now on I always check the websites to ensure I have the latest instructions.

fyi. DAve
.

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