Chris's Chardonnay - Heritage Estates - Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024

 

Did this one last and it went fine. The temp strip was defective so I need to get another one. 

Ingredients

6.3 L of Wine concentrate.

34 grams of yeast nutrient

Wine Yeast

Spring water

Well water which I had to top up with since I ran out of spring water.

O.G. - 1.090 ( this is just a guess, it could of been 1.090 or higher )

F.G. - .990

% -    13.6

Turned wall heater on for now but will check it often cause I want to ferment all 3 wines at 72F. 

Same Night - Starting to see activity late when I was going to bed.

Day 2 - Same. 72F. I need one more temp strip, mine is crap.

Day 3 - Had to turn off the heat, too warm.

Day 14 - Rack to a carboy if the gravity is at .998 or less.

Racking on Friday, Dec. 6 which is Day 14.

Add the rest of the ingredients in order as they say. Let it sit for 14 more days before filtering.

Rack on Thursday, Dec. 5. Check gravity before racking. I am sure it is below .998 but check it anyway. Let it sit for 14 more days before filtering. You should be able to filter before Xmas Day.

                                  GRAVITY ON RACKING DAY

.090. Well, it sure did ferment. Last one without yeast energizer was 1.000 or 10 points higher.

It won't be sweet. When I removed the bag of chips, it had either dead yeast or wood leavings swirling around. It will clear when I add the stuff and filter. Next batch, remove the bag a few

days before racking. I topped up to get more wine. Not much, I would say no more thana 2 litres.

The clearing agent has it's work cut out for it. I got as much wine as I could and may of gotten some trub along with it. I do have 14 days so lots of time for that. I have to go to the Wine Shoppe to get a bottle fillter and may pick up some coarse pads just incase this is still not as clear before filtering as it should be. Those pads clog up easily. I also want to buy a wine kit too.

Mine is clearing but Marty's is not. Of course wait and see after 14 days and I do have a course filter to use before the polishing one. 

                                           FILTERED AND BOTTLED THIS ON DEC. 16

I am thinking on bottling on Dec. 16 to have some wine for our Storey Xmas. The 14 days conditioning is really to get it to clear before filtering as the filtering machine cannot filter hazy

wine very well. It is very clear. I think I will filter and bottle on Dec. 16 which is tomorrow.

Even though my FG was .990, I am fermenting future wine at 74F. Marty's Red will be the closest to the wall heater and try to keep it at 74F. I am thinking on buying a heat belt that has a built in thermostat to keep it at a steady temp and not heating the room and wasting money.

I forgot one thing I always did and not sure if I had to do it or not. That is running star san through the pump and leave it there until I run 11 litres of RO water through the filters and lines. 

Now for the taste.

Very good. Nice bouquet, whatever the hell that means. It doesn't have that just bottled wine taste I always got with Costco wine kits before they had a month or so to age. Buying another one soon.