Clearly I can’t multitask. Last week’s post proved that babbling on camera and racking wine don’t mix…

For those out of the loop, since October 23rd, I’ve been fashioning wine out of Vidal Blanc juice, which I bought from a grower in New York.

Fermentation ended two weeks ago. Most of the wine’s sediment had settled. My mini-fridge crystallized the tartaric acid. But I managed to set that all back another week by sucking dregs back into the wine.

Word of advice: don’t daze off. Stop suction before, rather than after, your siphon gets to the tank’s bottom.

So I added dirt to get rid of dirt (actually it’s a vegan clay of diatomes that negatively charges the wine: killing suspension, glomming solids together, and sinking them).

This new week gives me another chance to rack my wine. Let the video-babble commence:

After some tank down-time, I return with sparkling fresh, sterilized equipment:

Let’s see what’s left:

Yumm!

Clean equipment immediately after you rack wine.  Otherwise, gunk dries into a cake that isn’t for your birthday.

Spick and/or span?

Once purged of all insolent detritus, I reset the tanks and camera:

The Fates hold one more racking in my future. If I don’t mess it up, bottling will be in order. Glass carboys are hardly air-tight, especially as the wine decreases. But once in bottle, air is my least concern.