Lum,
Thanks - I have learned a lot from all of you, which has helped me to
respond to others.
Darlene

"Lum" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Dar V" > wrote in message
> ...
> > Harry,
> > With all honesty, I should tell you that I do not do wine kits.
However,
> I
> > can answer you questions in a general way. Please wait until you hear
> from
> > those who make wine kits.
> > 1.) At what point should I filter, if I choose to filter the wines?
> > I generally don't filter my wines until just before I bottle
them.
> > I wait until the wine drops as much sediment as it can before
> bottling.
> > If there is too much junk in the wine, them your filter will clog up
> > very quickly, so I usually let the wine clear as much as it can on its
own
> > (by racking), before making any attempt to filter.
> >
> > > 2.) When racking, I assume I discard the sediment, even though it has
> > > lots of wine mixed in there...?
> > I like to have a reserve top-up for my wines, so I try very hard
> to
> > recover as much wine as I can from the sediment. There are many
ways
> to
> > do this, others talk about putting it into a soda bottle and
> > running it through the spin cycle on the washing machine. Jack Keller
> talks
> > about some different ways on his wine site. I pour
> the
> > sediment into a glass container with as little head space as I can and
put
> > it in the fridge. Within 6-10 hours, you'll notice the heavier sediment
> > falls to the bottom and the wine settles at the top. When the wine at
the
> > top isn't getting any larger in volume, then I draw the wine off into
> > another container and keep it until the next time I rack.
> >
> > > 3.) Will filtering reduce the amount of wine loss I'm seeing from
> > > 2)?.
> > I don't believe so. You're always going to lose some wine when
you're
> > racking off of lees. You can either make a bit more so you have a
little
> > wine to top-up with, or you can rack to smaller containers each time to
> > reduce the amount of exposure to air, or you can add a similar wine to
top
> > up with, or you can drop marbles into the carboy to increase the volume
to
> > keep it topped up.
> >
> > > 4.) For bulk aging, how long should I let the wine sit on the
> > > sediment? I'm paranoid about oxidation, and don't want to rack every
> > > month!
> > My rule of thumb is to rack 2-4 times in a 7 month aging period. It
> all
> > depends on the wine. If a wine is dropping a lot of sediment, I will
rack
> > it (but I usually let the wine sit for at least a month). The amount of
> > sediment a wine drops should lessen with time. Some wines clear up at 3
> > months and then I won't rack it anymore, some take longer. Hopefully
> > someone will have some experience with your wine kits, so they can tell
> you
> > what works best.
> >
> > Good-luck,
> > Darlene
>
> Thank you for a great post Darlene.
>
>