Tag: racking

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Racking Your Wine – WMA010

Racking Your Wine

Racking is simply the process of moving wine from one container to another. There are several different ways you can accomplish this, each of which requires different equipment. In this episode we explore four different ways to rack and the equipment involved.

Racking the Riesling from the primary to secondary fermenter.In addition to the nuts and bolts of racking you’ll also learn about why we rack and how to gauge when to rack. Understanding how and when to rack is a key part of making quality wine. Waiting too long to rack or doing it too often can have a negative impact on your finished wine. Continue reading “Racking Your Wine – WMA010”

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How to Know When to Rack your Wine

There’s a lot of different information out there on when to rack your wine. Largely this is because you rack at different times for different reasons depending upon where you are in the wine making process.

Knowing when to rack wine will help you make a better bottle of wine.The three main times when you rack a wine are:

1. When moving your wine from the primary fermenter to the secondary.
2. When moving your wine from the secondary fermenter to a bulk aging vessel.
3. After fermentation you can rack either for clarity or in and out of oak vessels.

Let’s take a look at why and when you rack wines during these different phases. Continue reading “How to Know When to Rack your Wine”

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Checking the Specific Gravity and Racking

After the primary fermentation has slowed down (after about 7 days) it’s time to check the specific gravity. What this tells us is how the density of the wine compares to that of water.

Grape juice is more dense than water. Thus before we fermented the grape juice the specific gravity was over 1.0. As the yeast converted the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation, the density of the wine has been decreasing. A specific gravity less than 0.990 tells us that the primary fermentation has slowed down enough that we need to rack. Continue reading “Checking the Specific Gravity and Racking”

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Racking off the Lees

Racking is the next step, after the initial more vigorous fermentation.

What is racking?

Simply put racking is siphoning your wine off of the dead yeast, known as lees, into a clean container.

Racking wine off the lees involves siphoning from the primary fermenter to a secondary fermentation container.There are two reasons to rack your wine. First it helps clarify your wine but it can also prevent off flavors from the decomposing yeast.

Over time yeast and other sediment will precipitate out of your wine and settle to the bottom. The cloudiness will dissipate with each successive racking until you’ve got a nearly clear wine. Nearly because you do sometimes need to fine the last bit of cloudiness out.

Getting your wine off of the yeast as it decomposes can prevent off flavors. While some wines are aged on the yeast you really need to know what you’re doing to do this successfully. Continue reading “Racking off the Lees”