"Tater" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> And boy, does that yeast make a racket!
>
> anyway a wineshop owner I was talking to last friday said I should
> completly skip step 2 in the instructions. anyone do this before? I'd
> like to hear some comments

Let me guess (since you didn't say) step two is something like rack the wine
down into a smaller container. Regardless of how insignificant that step may
seem the question is how much of a chance do you want to take on the money
you spent for the kit? Some additional questions come to mind, like, is the
winshop owner willing to cover the loss if the wine goes bad? Did the kit
manufacturer put in step two just to give you something to do? Is there any
reason to NOT do step two? Why take chances on your first venture into
making wine?

Hmmm, lemme guess something else. You don't have the smaller carboy and the
shop owner doesn't have one to sell you at the moment... Am I close?

I'm not trying to be sarcastic, honest. If you've got the gear, do the
step. If you ain't got the gear, get it. If he don't got it, go somewhere
else. From the day you started you've got at least two, proably three weeks.

I don't really know about your kit (which you didn't name), but I'm betting
that step two (which you didn't describe) is to get the must off the largest
part of the lees. Doing that reduces the chance of imparting strange flavors
into the wine from all those dead yeasty critters that have sunk to the
bottom of the fermenter. Especially if the step says something like leave
most of the crud behind.

--
Galwaf ar fy nhgyd-Gymry i sefyll yn y bwlch!

Casey