Costco Wine - Friday, March 22, 2019

I am using 2 pails at the same time. I got a little confused I guess and added too much water to one pail. I don't mind as if everything goes right, it will still be 10% wine. Fine for me. I do have one concern that it was too high in the pail and the oak chips may block the air lock and blow wine all over the livingroom. How to explain that? I came down to the lid the next morning that was swollen with no activity in the blow off tube. Hmmm. Seems to be fermenting though. 68 F. Will check it often. The normal one beside it is fermenting, but very slow. I have another box on the floor and will make sure I get them right. Once inch below the first ring is 23 L. A lot of wine makers go with 19 L in the pail to get more alcohol. Nope, I don't need that and will follow the instructions.

 23 L in the pail is around an inch below the bottom ring. Anywhere around there
 is fine. Buy your yeast from the Wine Shoppe for now on.

DAY 2

Just started with not much activity. 68 F. I installed an air lock to get a better look at activity. Some activity, but not much. It should be way more active than this. It has been more than 24 hrs. since I pitched the yeast. Hmmm....

Day 3 - Still a sluggish fermentation. I may have to wait way longer than 10 - 14 days to rack this to carboys. The kit was in date, so maybe it is just too cold? 68 F is not cold though. No hurry as long as it does its job.
Day 4 - Seems to be picking up. Too warm though - 72 F. Turned down fireplace.
Day 6 - Same steady activity. Will check gravity on day 10, or 11 or even 12. This took a day or so to get going.
Day 7 - Still going good. 70 F.
Day 10 - Still active. Will check gravity tomorrow. 
Day 11 - Gravity is:  1.020. Wow!! Way too high. I will leave it until there is no activity. It is still
               active though. From research I will check the gravity on day 14. I may go to the wine
               forum and ask what to do, rack or not.
Day 13 - Checked gravity again. 1.018. Will ask the wine forum what to do.
               Didn't get an answer from all of the so called wine experts. Fuck them.
               Will not go to them if they can't even answer a simple wine question.
               Racked anyway and tossed it in the bathroom with the heat on. Maybe
               it will do something. I have a long way to go, 23 points!! Not so sure it
               will do anything near that. It is going good in one pail. Not so much in
               the other one.
Day 15 - Same. Both are active, one more than the other.
Day 17 - Same. Gee, I wonder when it will stop, not even slowing down. But, I have never seen
               wine ferment in carboys, just pails. Instructions say 15 days in secondary. These are just
               guidelines, so patience is required with this batch. The next box I have on the floor will
               be right by the book, no goof ups.
Day 22 - Starting to slow down now. Still lots of bubbles coming up from the bottom of the
               carboy.

                                                              Racked Wed, April 17

Still bubbling and almost clear, not good. Yeast eating itself. Will rack, check gravity and add all the stuff if it isn't too sweet. What if it is still to sweet? Carry on anyway.

                                                                GRAVITY -  0.096 - April 18

I am good to go. stabilizing and degassing now. Added clearing agent next day. Bottle April 29. Next wine is using only one carboy as I need one of these for my Brother Chris.

                                                                  Bottling One Carboy on April 25 ( 10% )
                                                                  Bottled the other one on April 29 ( 11.6% )

I really couldn't tell the difference between them. Got 26 bottles with the first one and got only 22 bottles with the second. I will top up all further wines with my current wine if available. Brewing a red wine for the first time I won't have any wine to top it up with. Filtering is a ton of work, way more work than I would of though. Syphoning into a carboy, filtering into another, conditioning the filters and then bottle in a tiny space.