Hi Farshid! You can rack the wine to a secondary container before it clears. The idea is to get off of a deep pile of lees before it breaks down and gives your wine off flavors.

Your wine will continue to clear over time and it may take a third or fourth racking to get the wine completely off the sediment that will continue to fall over the next month or two.

I hope this helps! -Matt

I just started the primary fermentation and 10 days is past. But sediments are not settled and so I can not go through second fermentation. Is there any thing wrong?
thanks for your help

Hi Skip,

I don’t think 17 days will be too long. If it were my wine I would check the specific gravity immediately upon returning. If it is at or below 1.010 I would leave the wine in the primary fermenter to let it finish. Once fermentation completes I’d then rack to the secondary to begin the clearing process.

If you rack while fermentation is still going on and the specific gravity is less than 1.010 you risk shocking the yeast and winding up with a stuck fermentation.

I’ve made the assumption here that this kit did not include any fruit. If your kit came with skins and they’re in the fermenter now I would hesitate to leave them for that long. Likely it would be fine but there’s a chance that the skins can start to give off flavors and aromas in that 17 day window.

I hope this helps Skip! Thanks for the question.

-Matt Williams

Thanks again for your insight and help.

Hi Lou!

If you’ve just racked from your primary fermenter to the carboy you should still be in the middle of fermentation so the huge amount of CO2 is okay. During primary fermentation about 70% of the sugars are converted to alcohol and carbon dioxide. Primary fermentation usually lasts about 7 days with most kits.

After those first 7 days or so you rack into a secondary fermentation container, in this case a carboy, where the last 30% of sugars are fermented. This stage usually lasts 14 days or so.

One factor that can drastically affect the amount of CO2 in your wine is temperature. Ideally your wine should be between 72 and 75 degrees for most kits. Any cooler than this and your wine will tend to hold on to carbon dioxide.

If your kit didn’t come with very good directions let me know and I’ll see what I can put together for you.

Cheers!

Matt