Bottling now will be a mistake.

It really depends on the quality of the "plastic" containers ( and to a
certain extent ,size ---- 1 gallon or 5 gallon? ) but provided you take a
few basic precautions then all should be reasonably well. As a first time
vintner you will enjoy the end product I am sure. I will try to be brief.
1. It is important to rack into a clean sanitised demijohn when fermentation
is complete. Assuming you are in 1 gallon sized containers, crush a single
campden tablet and dissolve in a little of the wine. Add it to the clean
container and siphon the wine from the old to the new. Take care to leave
behind the less ( rubbish at the bottom ) in the old demijohn .
2. Since you are not going to age it for too long it is a good idea at this
stage to degas the wine. either by shaking it with you hand firmly over the
open bottle or by using some sort of stirrer. This will help in the clearing
of the wine. Degassing will occur naturally over a long time but you aint
got that much time!.
2. It is important at this stage to ensure the new container is as full as
possible -- i.e. right to the neck of the new container --I normally top up
with some of last years wine but you can add sanitised marbles or cool
boiled water.Wine is best but you might not have any. You can use some
similar commercial "real" wine - I do frequently.
3. Cap off with an fermentation lock
4. Move to a cool storage area. Now since you are using some indeterminate
plastic containers it is important that your storage are be as clean and
free from "contaminating" substances like household cleaning material,
kerosene, weed killer etc -- so your garden shed/garage is not an ideal
place. Allow space around each separate demijohn and don't crowd them all
together. Plastic is semi permeable and has a sort of osmosis effect where
its contents may pick up off flavours from its surrounds.
5. Now 6 months is fine but you can bottle before that time. Just keep an
occasional eye on your new offspring and sooner than you think you will find
that each jar now contains a crystal clear liquid that is just asking to be
sampled. You can then bottle. The try and keep your fingers of it for as
long as possible!
6. If this is your first season with country wine you will not want to wait
any long before drinking some but most of my country wines are 2 years old
before I savour them. That wasn't the case many years ago when I tried my
early efforts at week 8! ( or was it week 4).
7. You will hear and read of many pitfalls --- but in fact wine is very
robust and quite forgiving and I bet yours will be more than OK.

It is a very good idea to read about it. Terry Gareys "Home Winemaking" is
good and designed for the US market. Jack Kellers website is overflowing
with information and essential reading.

No heresies in the above that I can see. Good drinking.

--
Trevor A Panther
In South Yorkshire, England
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"Darkginger" > wrote in message
...
> OK, I'm getting really confused. As a first time country wine maker, I've
> currently got 20 demijohns of various concoctions sitting around the
place.
> Some have been going since August, and all signs of fermentation seem to
>
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