Should I Bottle My Wine? My Carboys Are Popping Corks

Posted on August 3, 2013 by AIH

Our wine is still blowing the corks off the carboys. The SG has stopped going down-the wine tastes GREAT-the clarity is great-but, I am a little iffy on going ahead and bottling the wine. Do I need to keep racking our wine to get all the sediment out? What else can we do, to make our wine safe to bottle? These are all really GREAT tasting wines! Some of the wine jugs still have the air-locks in place. Sharyl Name: Sharyl R.
State: KANSAS

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Hello Sharyl,

You want to do everything you can to get the hydrometer’s specific gravity reading down to .998 or less. If your wine is currently at a higher hydrometer reading than this, you may want to take a look at The Top 10 Reasons For Fermentation Failure. By going over these reasons you my discover something you can do differently to get the fermentation to complete all the way to an S.G. of .998. If you are already at a reading of .998 or less, then your wine is safe to bottle.

One reason corks can pop off a carboy after the fermentation has completed is because of temperature change. If the wine in the carboy warms up a few degrees it can cause the wine to expand just enough to push an air-tight cork out of the carboy’s opening.

As always, you should rack the wine off the sediment before bottling. You should also add sulfites to the wine just right before bottling. This could either be in the form of: Campden tablets, potassium metabisulfite or sodium metabisulfite.

Also, if the fermentation did not get below a specific gravity reading of .998 and you still insist on bottling it anyway, I would strongly recommend adding potassium sorbate (wine stabilizer). This will help to eliminate the chance of a refermentation while in the wine bottles. Potassium sorbate will not destroy the wine yeast, but it will keep it from multiplying and regenerating the size of its colony.

Hope this information helps you out.

Happy Winemaking,

Ed Kraus
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

Bottling Wine Before The Fermentation Is Complete

Posted on August 1, 2013 by AIH

Hi Ed,
I made my first batch of orange wine from scratch on March 2nd, 2013. My first SG reading was 1.155 for the must. The wine yeast that I had ordered ended up on back order (of course after I started) I went to a local brew shop to get yeast and they only had beer yeast. I tried Cry Havoc. He told me to give it a week. Nothing happened. On the 9th, I added London Ale yeast because it still hadn’t come. The SG was 1.170. I called the supply place and found out the wine yeast wouldn’t be here until the 14th. I was afraid it was spoiling with out the proper yeast, so they told me to add 1/4 teaspoon of potassium metabisulfite (to 5 gal) so I did. On the 14th I strained the fruit out and added Montrachet yeast. It did work! I racked it into a car boy on the 21st. On April 25 the SG was 1.018. On May 5 it was 1.016. On July 13th it was still 1.016. It is very clear and clingy, and it tastes like port. It’s really good! Is it finished, or is the SG too high?

Name: Lori H.
State: CA

Hello Lori,

With the readings you gave, that would mean that your wine now has 22% alcohol. This is beyond the capabilities of the Montrachet wine yeast. With that being said, I do not do doubt that your wine is high in alcohol, but probably closer to 16% to 18%. This is the absolute upward limits of the Montrachet yeast, and is seldom reached with a typical fermentation.

Regardless, you would like to have your final gravity reading be down to .998 or lower. A reading of 1.016 is still quite high for an ending reading. Bottling at this point would give you a strong likelihood of a re-fermentation in the wine bottles. This will cause pressure to build in the bottles and a result of either one of two things: corks popping or wine bottles exploding.

Sometimes all it takes is a little patients. If you see the wine hydrometer reading continuing to go down a little every week, just wait it out. If a couple of weeks go by with no change in the hydrometer reading, then you may want to add some yeast nutrient to the wine must. Whatever you do, do not add more wine yeast or sugar. This will only make matters worse.

If you are determined to bottle your wine at the current reading, then you need to get all the wine yeast out of the wine. Then get the wine stabilized. For this I would take the following steps:

Rack the wine off of any sediment that currently lies at the bottom.
Add a standard dose of bentonite as directed on our container.
Cool the wine down to at least 45°F or cooler for one week, but do not freeze.
Rack the wine off any sediment, again.
Allow the wine to warm up. (This could take a day or so for 5 gallons)
As soon as the wine makes it to room temperature add potassium sorbate at the rate of 1/2 teaspoon per gallon.
Add 1/16 teaspoon per gallon of wine of either sodium metabisulfite or potassium metabisulfte.
Bottle right away.

The idea with these steps are to get every last bit of wine yeast out of the wine — even the wine that you can not see with the naked eye. Realize that wine yeast is finer than flour. After that, render any wine yeast you missed as harmless with the stabilizers. Here’s another blog post with more on this subject, How To Stop A Wine Fermentation .

Happy Winemaking,

How To Fix A Sour Wine

Posted on July 13, 2013 by AIH

Hello,
I’m a beginner wine maker, and my last batch (2012) grapes were picked late. As the result the Brix level was high (27), and based on others recommendation I added some water to lower the Brix level. But this also lowered the TA to about .40%, which is lower that recommended. So the same expert friend also recommended adding some Tartaric acid to increase the TA. I used half the recommended amount, and ended up with .75%, which is too high. My Red wine is now aging in an Oak barrel, and the TA has been naturally lowered. But it is still a bit too sour for my taste. What do you recommend, not touching it, or to make further adjustment?
Name: Massoud V.
State: Washington
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Hello Massoud,
Sorry you are having such a problem with your wine’ s acidity. Fortunately, there is something you can do to correct the wine.
Add potassium bicarbonate to the wine, also referred to as Acid Reducing Crystals. This works fairly well when you only need to adjust the total acidity (TA) just a little bit — say 10 or 20 basis points. The potassium bicarbonate will cause some of the tartaric acid in the wine to solidify as potassium bitartrate crystals and settle to the bottom.
Potassium bicarbonate is very simple to use. You stir in the appropriate amount needed and then let the wine set for anywhere from 1 week to 1 month. Take weekly readings with an Acid Test Kit. When you no longer see any change in the reading and the potassium bitartrate crystals have had time to clear, then you are free to bottle the wine at your leisure.
It’s good to be patient with this step. If you bottling the wine before all the crystals have formed or have had time to settle out, then you will end up with crystal deposits in your bottles of wine. Also, the cooler you can keep the wine during this step, the faster it will go. So store the wine in as cold of place as possible, but do not freeze.
Knowing how much potassium bicarbonate to add is simply a math problem. For every teaspoon of potassium bicarbonate you add to a gallon of wine, you will reduce the total acidity of that wine by .18%.
Let’s assume that you have a 5 gallon barrel of wine, and the TA has settled in a .70% tartaric — but you want it to be .60% tartaric. That means you want to lower the total acidity by .10%. If one teaspoon will lower a gallon by .18%, then one teaspoon will lower 5 gallons by .036% (.18 / 5 = .036). With this information you can determine that you need to add 2.78 teaspoons to the 5 gallons to lower the total acidity by .10% (.10 / .036 = 2.78).
Before using the Acid Reducing Crystals you may want to give the wine more time to age. You say that the total acidity of the wine is naturally lowering. What this means is some of the tartaric acid is dropping out on its own. As eluded to before, if you cool the wine down it may increase this natural dropping-out of tartaric acid to an extent that is acceptable.
But if you done waiting, then by all means use the potassium bicarbonate. If is a very accurate way to predictably lower your wine’s acidity and is fairly simple to do.
One other subject we won’t get into here but is something you may want to investigate, is using a malolactic fermentation to reduce your wine’s acidity . It’s not the right thing to do to all wines, but may be an option for the wine you have.
Happy Winemaking,
Ed Kraus
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

There's White Stuff On My Wine!

Posted on July 9, 2013 by AIH

I have an overrun one gallon jug of Merlot on its 2nd racking and its got some white moldy looking stuff on top of the wine between the wine and the stopper . Which is a 1 inch gap. What’s up with that? And should I rack it and see what happens or what?Name: Dennis D.
State: PA.

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Hello Dennis,

It could be a mold beginning to forming, but most likely it is a bacterial infection. This can happen if the wine has completed its fermentation and has become still. When an air-lock goes dry or is taken off the glass jug, fresh air can encourage bacteria to grow. Winemaker’s refer to this as flowers.

It sounds like you have a very small amount in the neck of the glass jug. This is not too serious and can easily be overcome. I would go ahead and rack the wine into another sanitized jug.

If the fermentation has already completed, I would not hesitate to add sulfites to the wine: add either a Campden tablet or 1/16 teaspoon of either potassium metabisulfite or sodium metabisulfite. This will easily destroy the bacteria. The wine should be perfectly fine after that, but you will only be able to find out by smelling and tasting the wine.

If the wine is still fermenting then you’ll just have to wait it out. You can siphon the wine into another sanitized gallon glass jug. Siphon from the middle so as to leave both the surface scum and the sediment behind. Once the fermentation does complete, be sure to get the sulfites on the gallon of wine as soon as the fermentation completes.

A blog post you may want to take a look at is There’s White Scum On My Wine. What Should I Do? This goes over in a little more detail what you can do to fix the problem. Another one that my glean some insight is Can You Have Head-Space In Your Secondary Fermenters?

Again, you situation does not sound too serious. My instincts tell me the wine will be just fine, but you’ll have to depend on your own smell and taste to really know.

Happy Winemaking,

Is It OK To Bottle A Carbonated Wine?

Posted on July 4, 2013 by AIH

Making Cracking Petillant Wine I started bottling a Red Zinfandel which I started in March. It is now June 29. I noticed bubbles in the bottles as I was filling them. I tasted the wine and it felt like it was slightly carbonated. The SG is .998. What might I do to prevent any exploding bottles or should I put the wine back into a carboy and make adjustments. This is the 7th or 8th wine I have made and I have had no problems in the past with either reds or whites.
Thank you for your prompt response.
Tom
Name: Tom M.
State: New York
Hello Tom,

It is possible that the bubbling action you saw was from a slight fermentation but not very likely. With a specific gravity reading from the wine hydrometer of .998, I would say that the wine yeast have little to nothing to ferment and therefore have no way of causing any re-fermentation problems after you bottle the wine.
What you are most likely seeing is the leftover CO2 gas from the original fermentation. A wine fermentation creates both CO2 gas and alcohol. The CO2 gas is what you see coming through the air-lock. The CO2 gas is also the same stuff that’s puts the fizzy in beer and soda pop.
Most of the gas wants to leave, but some of it will stay saturated into the wine. It is only when the wine is agitated that it will take the opportunity to escape. This result is the bubbles you are seeing.
One thing you should do is degas the wine before bottling. Degassing the wine is simply agitating it so that the CO2 gas will leave before bottling. If you made your wine from a wine ingredient kit, the directions generally say to stir or shake the carboy before adding any clarifiers and bottling. If this is a step you did not do, or do enough, then this is what you are seeing.
One handy piece of wine making equipment we offer is a Degassing / Mix Paddle. It is a paddle that actually chucks onto a hand drill. The paddles are hinged so that it folds up small enough to fit into the opening of a glass carboy. Just stick it into the wine and pull the trigger.
I would like to point out the CO2 gas does not negatively affect the wine in any way. Upon decanting the wine you will see some bubbles, but nothing near to the degree of a sparking wine. A sparkling wine has a lot more CO2 gas in it. It is kept in the wine under pressure. This wine will not be under pressure in any way. The wine will only be holding the CO2 gas it can without pressure, which is not very much. Wines like this are known as crackling or petillant wines.
To sum up, the only way the bubbles could be causing a problem is if the wine were still fermenting. With the reading you gave of .998 on your wine hydrometer, this is not very likely. This reading indicates that there are no sugars left to ferment. If you have already bottled the wine there is no reason to be concerned. If you haven’t that you have the opportunity to degas the wine completely then bottle, but this is not necessary from a safe wine perspective.

Happy Winemaking,
Ed Kraus
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

Racking Your Wine The Optimal Way

Posted on June 29, 2013 by AIH

I have been making your wine for many years. Every time i make a wine kit I have that air space in the top of the carboy. I use to add wine I already made to the carboy to top it off but it takes 2 bottles and that kills me. I am very conservative with the racking tilting carboy on one side to minimize loss and only rack once. I like to bulk age but I am concerned about the effects of the air so I bottle as soon as possible. Is there an option that makes sense. can the sediment be run through a filter to retain more wine? Name: Joe G.
State: RI

Hello Joe,

The first thing I’d like to say is two bottles seems like a lot. We need to figure out what’s going on.

The first thing to consider is maybe you are not starting out with the full amount. So you might want to double check any level markings that are on your primary fermenter to confirm that they are correct. Make sure you are starting with the full amount intended.

Assuming that you have measurements correct, I suspect that it is the way you rack your wine that is at issue here. You stated that you only rack your wine once. I believe that you can get more wine by doing more rackings. Here’s how:

You should be doing 3 rackings:

One on about day 5 of the fermentation
Another after the fermentation has completed
One more right before bottling.

Some winemakers will even add a fourth racking between the fermentation completing and the one before bottling. This is particularly important if you want bulk age your wine.

Here’s the trick that will get you more wine
When doing the first two rackings, get as much liquid as you can, even if there is sediment coming along with it. Only worry about getting all the liquid at this point. You are only concerned with getting rid of the bulk of the sediment at this time, not all of it. If you try to leave all the sediment behind at this stage you will be wasting a lot of wine.

It is only when you get down to the very last racking that you need to worry about leaving all the sediment behind. But fortunately for you, by the time you get to this stage there should only be a dusting of sediment left to deal with. By racking your wine in this way you will be surprised to find that you may loose about a half a bottle of wine, at the most.

As to your question about filtering the sediment through a some type of filter, there is no successful way I know of to do this. This issue being that that amount of sediment will clog the filter almost immediately. It is important to understand that the sediment from the yeast itself is as fine as flour, so most filters wouldn’t help anyway. Even a coffee filter would allow all of the yeast sediment to pass through.

I have heard of people putting the sediment in jars or jugs and let it separate while under refrigeration, but it my view it is hardly worth the effort, nor is it necessary if you rack your wine as described above.

There is a blog post you may want to take a look at that covers this as well, Don’t Waste The Wine.

Help! My Homemade Wine Is Cloudy!

Posted on June 25, 2013 by AIH

I have a Apple-Peach wine that is six months old. It’s done fermenting, so I used bentonite thinking it would clear so I could bottle. The bentonite didn’t clear at all. It’s not oxidized (I’ve been there and really worked this time to make sure that didn’t happen). I also tried the Kitosol 40 on a six-gallon batch and that didn’t clear either. However, the Kitosol 40 was a batch I bought last year. Can I treat both batches now with the Sparkloid Hot Mix?Name: Becki P.
State: Nebraska
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Hello Becki,

I’m going to assume that the fermentation has actually completed and you have verified this with a wine hydrometer. Sometimes a fermentation can carry on extremely slowly, to an unnoticeable degree, and stir up sediment that will make the wine cloudy.

Becki, if both the bentonite and the Kitosol 40 had no effect on the wine, then I am fairly confident that what you are dealing with is a pectin haze. If this is the case, then there is no fining agent that will be able to clear your cloudy wine.

Fining agents such as the bentonite and Kitosol 40 are designed to collect very fine particles and drag them to the bottom of the fermentation vessel as sediment. These particles can be finer than flour and still be cleared from the wine with these wine ingredients.

But a pectin haze is not caused by particles that make the wine cloudy. It is caused by the molecular make up of the wine. Just like lemonade or apple juice can be cloudy or clear, so can a wine. The cloudiness is caused by pectin cells that are molecularly bound to the liquid. There is no way for a fining agent to collect them and clear them out of the wine.

Pectin is found naturally in any fruit. It makes up the gel that holds the fruit’s fiber together. With most fruit the pectin is broken down by naturally-occurring enzymes during the wine fermentation. This makes the resulting wine clear. But some fruits have higher levels of pectin than others. Peach is one of them. Others are strawberry and plum. Apple has a moderate level of pectin.

When making wine from these fruits additional enzymes may be needed to help breakdown the larger volume of pectin cells. All our fruit wine recipes include the addition of pectic enzyme for this reason.

If you did not add pectic enzyme to your wine recipe then this would be another clue that points to the fact that you are dealing with a pectin haze. If you did add pectic enzyme, then you can still have a pectin haze, but this is not the normal result. It is a matter of how much pectin is in the wine verses how much pectic enzyme is being added.

Here’s What You Can Do To Test For A Pectin Haze:

Assuming you have a 5 gallon batch of wine, take a sample portion of it, like a half gallon or even a gallon, and add a full dose of pectic enzyme to the wine. When I say full dose, I am referring to the amount you would add to the entire 5 gallons. This will concentrate that dose into your smaller sample.

Blend the pectic enzyme evenly throughout the wine, and let it sit for at least two weeks, maybe even a month. What you are looking for is to see if the pectic enzyme in concentrated doses will clear the wine sample. If it does, add the sample back to the rest of the batch and give pectic enzymes a few weeks to work on it. If no improvement is made add another full dose of pectic enzyme to the entire batch and give it some more time.

If your homemade wine is still cloudy then you will have to re-examine the possibility that there is a minor fermentation going on or that the fining agents you chose were just not the right ones for these particular cloudiness. In all honesty I don’t believe this will be the case. There have been many cloudy homemade wines that have cleared up brilliantly have a little pectic enzyme and some patients.

Happy Winemaking,

Cleaning A Wine Barrel With Sodium Bisulfite

Posted on June 18, 2013 by AIH

Wine Barrel I put a sterilization solution in the barrel of citric acid and sodium bisulfite. I am now ready to put the wine in, but am worried the rinsing won’t be enough to get the chemicals out of the wood. The directions say to rinse, fill with water, wait 24 hrs then empty and fill with your wine.
Name: Craig R.
State: Wisconsin
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Hello Craig,
I understand your concern, but you really have little to be worried about. Having a remnant amount of sodium bisulfite left in the wine barrel is of little consequence. If some did get left behind and into the wine, it would have an unnoticeable effect on it. Even if a lot actually got into the wine, it would not ruin it. Any negative effects from such an accident could be remedied as well.
Sodium bisulfite is something you should be using directly into the wine, anyway: before the fermentation, after the fermentation, and again before bottling. It is also interesting to note that sulfites are a natural by-product of a yeast fermentation, so it’s something that is very much a part of wine regardless if you add it or not.
Another factor is that sodium bisulfite wants to turn into a gas when dissolved in a liquid. It wants to leave through dissipation. Citric acid is also added to the solution to help this release of sulfites. By lowering the pH of the solution your are increasing the ability of the sulfites to release as SO2 gas. By the time you drain the barrel and rinse it, most of the sulfites have already left.
With this in mind, all that can really be left behind after preparing the wine barrel is pretty innocuous: trace amounts of citric acid, sodium and sulfur. None of them harmful in any way to the wine or to us humans in such insignficant amounts.
Happy Winemaking,
Ed Kraus
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

Do You Have A Malt Liquor Recipe?

Posted on June 7, 2013 by AIH

Malt Liquor Can I would like to try brewing Haffenreffer Private Stock malt liquor. Do you have a recipe for this American malt liquor 6.90% ABV? Whole grain or extract would be OK. I can go either way. I have been brewing about ten years and would like to try to make an old favorite from back in the 50s. Not available in Arkansas. Hoping you can help with a workable recipe.
Name: Roger B.
State: Arkansas
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Hi Roger,
Thanks so much for your question! This sounds like a fun experiment!
As you probably know, malt liquor is a basically a high-gravity lager brewed with high levels of adjuncts, usually corn, sugar, or a combination of both. Malt liquors tend to be around 6-8% alcohol by volume and are lightly hopped.
While I’ve never had the particular malt liquor you mentioned, I’ve had my fair share of Olde English, so I have a general idea what you’re going for. You may want to do some experimentation to find what works best for you, but here’s what I recommend:

Crack open a 40 of your favorite malt liquor.
Get a Brewers Best Cream Ale or American Light recipe kit.
Supplement the recipe with an extra can of Briess Pilsen Light liquid malt extract plus a combination of flaked corn and corn sugar to bring your estimated original gravity to about 1.070.
Use a clean fermenting lager yeast, such as Wyeast 2035.
Lager the beer, fermenting it at cold temperatures to make the beer as smooth as possible.
Drink a number of 40s over the following weeks so you can reuse them to bottle your own malt liquor.

You could also try an all-grain recipe like this one (for a 5-gallon batch):

7 lbs. two-row barley malt
2 lbs. flaked maize
2 lbs. corn or cane sugar
.5 lb. caramel 20L malt
1 oz. of a low alpha acid hop at :60
1 oz. of a low alpha acid hop at :10
1 pack lager yeast (Try Vierka German Lager dry yeast, Wyeast 2007, or Wyeast 2035

Or, you may want to try Charlie Papazian’s recipe for an “Olde English 800”, found in the Complete Joy of Homebrewing:

Olde English 800
5 Gallons

OG: 1.055
FG: 1.004
ABV: 7%
Color: 4.5 SRM
Bittering Units: 14

3.5 lbs. American 2-row pale malt
3.75 lbs. American 6-row malt
3 lbs. flaked corn
2 HBU (56 MBU) American Cluster hops (pellets) – 105 minutes (bittering)
1.5 HBU (43 MBU) American Nugget hops (pellets) – 105 minutes (bittering)
1/4 tsp. Irish moss
Wyeast 2007 Pilsen Lager yeast

Instructions: A step infusion mash is employed to mash the grains. Add 10 quarts (9.5L) of 130-degree F (54.5 C) water to the crushed grain and flaked corn, stir, stabilize and hold the temperature at 122 degrees F (50 C) for 30 minutes. Add 5 quarts (1.9 L) of boiling water. Add heat to bring temperature up to 150 degrees F (65.5 C). Hold for about 60 minutes.

After conversion, raise temperature to 167 degrees F (75 C) water, lauter and sparge with 4 gallons (15 L) of 170 degree F (77 C) water. Collect about 6.5 gallons (25 L) of of runoff, add bittering hops and bring to a full and vigorous boil.

The total boil time will be 105 minutes. When 10 minutes remain, add Irish moss. After total wort boil of 105 minutes (reducing wort volume to just over 5 gallons), turn off the heat, then separate or strain out and sparge hops. Chill the wort to 65 degrees F (18 C) and direct into a sanitized fermenter. Aerate the cooled wort well. Add an active yeast culture and ferment for 4 to 6 days in the primary at 55 degrees F (15 C). Then transfer into a secondary fermenter, chill to 50 degrees F (10 C) to age for two more weeks, then lager for two to four more weeks at 40 degrees F (4.5 C).

When secondary aging is complete, prime with sugar, bottle or keg. Let condition at temperatures above 60 degrees F (15.5 C) until clear and carbonated, then store chilled.

It may take a couple tries to get the flavor just right, but I’m sure you can do it! Good luck and let us know how it turns out!
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David Ackley is a beer writer, brewer, and self-described “craft beer crusader.” He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder of the Local Beer Blog.

Can Stirring A Wine Oxidize It?

Posted on June 1, 2013 by AIH

Oxidized Wine I have made a 5 gallon batch of Elderberry wine. I have racked it three times since it was transferred to the secondary for bulk aging. It needs to be sweetened before bottling. My question is when I add the sugar, sorbate and metabisulfite to the carboy will stirring the wine to incorporate these ingredients expose it to too much air and cause a problem with oxidation after it’s bottled?
Name: David S.
State: Louisiana
Hello David,
Thanks for the great question.
One thing we do know is that the wine does need to be stirred. The sugar, potasium sorbate and sodium metabisulfite needs to be mixed evenly throughout the wine. There’s no way around it. This brings us to your question: does this stirring bring too much oxygen into the wine? The answer is, it can!
The trick is to do the stirring without splashing the wine. The actual act of stirring does nothing to dissolve more air or oxygen into the wine. It’s the splashing that can cause this. When you splash a liquid, you are increasing the surface area of that liquid on an astronomical scale. This increase in surface area is what causes air to saturate into the wine.
One item you can use to help you in this situation is a De-gassing/Mixing Paddle. It attaches to a hand-drill and spins quickly within the wine — no splashing. You can also do the same thing manually with a hand-held mixing paddle. The mixing paddles we offer have thin shanks so as not to splash across the wines surface.
A second force that is on your side is the sodium metabisulfite. In addition to keeping the wine from spoilage, it also helps to drive out any oxygen that does manage to dissolve into the wine. The expansion of the sulfur dioxide replaces the oxygen.
Another little related tip is eliminate the splashing from the siphon hose when racking the wine. Always fill your carboy from the bottle up. In other words, make sure that the siphon hose reaches all the way to the bottom of the fermenter you are filling.
By doing these simple things you will be helping your wine greatly. Oxidation has been known to completely ruin a wine. From an esthetic standpoint, oxidation causes the wine to turn amber/brown, making it very unappealing. From a flavor/aroma standpoint, it gives the wine a bitter, nutty character that can reach the point of intolerable.
Happy Winemaking,
Ed Kraus
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.