Costco Charnonnay - Sunday, April 9 2023

 First thing I need to do is to buy a muslum bag to toss in the oak chips. They floated on top, but hopefully they will sink a bit to get a little flavour in the wine. I hate oak chips. I did notice in Marty's wine it had an edge to it, so I bought a muslum bag for our wine. I didn't go 10 days with my wine like I did with Marty's wine. I need to buy some marbles at the dollar store to make the bag sink. I did that before and the wine was good. 

O.G. -  Kit #1 - 1.092 - The left one started on April 10. ( Marty's Wine )

O.G. -  Kit #2 - 1.092 - The right one started on April 11. ( My Wine )

R.G. -  Kit #1 - 1.010 - Racked it on April 19

R.G. -  Kit #2 - 1.020 - (Leaving it a few more days to see if it will get lower)

R.G. -  Kit #2 - .995 or lower. Racked on April 26.

Day 1 - Next Day - Bubbling started around 9 am. Temp was too high ( 74 F ) so I turned off the heat.

Day 2 - Pail on left going slow. Pail on right is not.

Day 3 - Both are now bubbling but very slow. Turned up heat. 68 F. Removed my grain bag even

             though I could of left it in there. I thought the bag was absorbing some yeast. Added another

             sachet of yeast to get it bloody well going. Did nothing to the other one, ( Marty's ). 72 F.

Day 4 - Mine has finally caught up to Marty's. Give it to day 10, check the gravity and hopefully it will 

             be a normal fermentation at this time. It should of never happened, but it does happen.

Day 7 - Still going good. I will check the gravity on or around day 10 to see if I can rack or not. Temp

             was kind of high yesterday ( 76 F) but left it there because we went to the Jays game.

Day 8 - Outside temp went from 29 C to 12 C. Slowed down. Checking the gravity today and will

             rack to carboys if they are 1.010 or less.

Day 9 - Checking the gravity and if below 1.010, will rack to carboys.

Day 10 - Racking today. Only racked Marty's wine. Mine is still sluggish so I left it to finish.

Day 11 - For some reason, my wine is bubbling away pretty good. Temp was 76 F. Lowered heat.

Day 12 - Bubbling along but really slowed down. I may as well leave it for another day, check the

               gravity and rack it to a carboy. If not there yet? If it is close to 1.010, rack it to a carboy.

                                     No bubbling on either carboy on April 28

                                                           GRAVITY CHECK ON APRIL 26

                                                                                MY WINE

It is at .995 or lower. Rack it Mr. Vitner.

Racked Chris Wine on April 26. Leave it for 10 days and add the stuff as usual.

Kit #1 - Marty's Wine - ( April 29 ) Rack to a pail and add stuff on April 29. Re-rack to a carboy.

             Follow instructions and put it where you can easily rack to a carboy and filter

             and bottle it.

             April 30 - Add Chitosan. 

             May 10 - You may filter and bottle. This is between senior ball games.

             Added all the stuff to Marty's wine on April 29.

             Clearing up fine. By the time I filter and bottle this I will be lucky to get 24 bottles.

             I didn't lose a lot but when racking from the pail to the carboy there was a ton of

             trub. I stopped there since there was nothing but trub in the hose. May filter and

             bottle Marty's wine on May 10 or later.

             

             

Kit #2 - Chris's Wine - Rack to a pail and add stuff on May 6. 

             Follow instructions and filter and bottle it. You need filters and citric acid.

                                          

                                                          Sample on May 6

I need to taste my wine and check the gravity before adding 100 ml of wine conditioner. I have no idea how it tastes yet. Do not want to over sweeten it. Nope, not adding it.

Gravity - .994 Tastes quite good despite all of the trouble I had getting it to ferment properly.

I did all of the stuff and added Chitosan on May 8.

Marty's Wine - Ready to filter and bottle on May 10.

Chris's Wine -  Ready to filter and bottle on May 18.

                                                FILTER AND BOTTLE SOON

Finally bottling Marty's wine on May 15. Had an issue with the hose going to the filters. Either buy new hoses, or clamp the current hoses. I need to find another quick disconnect for the out hose to the filter. I hate the design of the filter machine. They should of just put a simple male outlet on and make it easy to clamp it. Idiots. I hope I didn't get a lot of oxygen in the wine as it wasn't tight enough when I filtered.

I changed the tubing in the filter. I do need those 1/4" quick disconnects which are in the US and not here in Canada. Christ, no surprise there. I am ordering them from More Wine in PA and sending them to Georgie in Boston. Have to order like 3 - 4 of them just to have stock on hand. The Aschabers can pick them up. I installed beer line to the filter and it seems to be okay. A temporary fix.

                                                           BOTTLED MINE MAY 22

Finally got mine done. One bottle less than Marty's. Not as crisp as Mary's, but seems fine.