Casey Wilson wrote:
> "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.
>
Casey gives good counsel to follow the kit instructions, at least the
first time you do the kit. The second time around is the time to impart
your own winemaking style by not exactly following their recipe. Your
version might be better or it might be worse. But at least then you'll
know how the kit manufacturer intended it to be.

I do have one possible difference of opinion regarding dead yeast cell
flavors. Maybe I've overlooked something, but I'd be surprised if the
wine will pick up noticeable flavor from the dead yeast cells during the
2-4 weeks typical of secondary fermentation. Getting the wine off the
fine lees, in my experience, is only important after the wine has
fermented to dryness (if you don't want a sur lies aging style to add
the yeast notes during bulk aging).

I'd agree that sur lies aging would seem odd for a light, fruity wine
such as Wineexpert Island Mist.
My white wine experiments with the sur lies aging method needed extended
fine lees (dead yeast cells) contact of at least 3 months before I was
able to notice the yeast notes. And in that case, I wanted the yeast
notes to add complexity to my wine.

Gene