I've decided to cold stabilize my Riesling in the primary.

They have spent the last 3 weeks or so fermenting in sealed (with an
airlock) plastic pails at 55F in my freezer, and I figure any air in there
has been pretty much blown out by the off-gassing. So I have crash chilled
them down to -2C which should also help settle the yeast out as well, and
will leave them like that for 2 weeks.

The only downside to this that I can see is that I haven't been able to open
up the buckets to test the SG of the juice and see that it has finished to
the level I want it.

Any other potential problems I'm missing, like spending too long on the
primary yeast cake, or being in a pail for over a month?

Brian

"Brian Lundeen" > wrote in message
...
> I've decided to cold stabilize my Riesling in the primary.
>
> They have spent the last 3 weeks or so fermenting in sealed (with an
> airlock) plastic pails at 55F in my freezer, and I figure any air in there
> has been pretty much blown out by the off-gassing. So I have crash chilled
> them down to -2C which should also help settle the yeast out as well, and
> will leave them like that for 2 weeks.
>
> The only downside to this that I can see is that I haven't been able to
open
> up the buckets to test the SG of the juice and see that it has finished to
> the level I want it.
>
> Any other potential problems I'm missing, like spending too long on the
> primary yeast cake, or being in a pail for over a month?

How about sucking in air as the wine cools? Also, air is much more soluble
in cold wine than wine at room temperature.

Tom S

"Tom S" > wrote in message
. com...
>
>>
> How about sucking in air as the wine cools? Also, air is much more
soluble
> in cold wine than wine at room temperature.
>
Thought of that. The airlock hole had been covered over before chilling to
prevent suckback, and I figure most air in the headspace was long purged.
Hopefully any reactions at the boundary layer will be minimal.

Brian