HUMAN.SIPHON

Posted on February 22, 2011 by waywardwine

Weeks of chilling and racking the wine into near clear perfection have passed. It seems like a lifetime since I blew it up and even longer since I traveled to the Finger Lakes to buy juice.

The tank has traveled to the car, to work and back home: all in hopes of cold stabilizing it. Sure, I could have bought a mini-fridge for $31. But where’s the adventure and/or headache in that?

My wine gets clearer. Each racking sees less and less sediment. I just need to keep the tank cool until I bottle the lot. So without further ado, here’s a look at my madness…

Yes. I suck. Well, at least my camera skills do. With luck I can stop sucking by tomorrow.

The Last Big Chill

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MINIMAL.RETURNS

Posted on February 18, 2011 by waywardwine

Chilling wine in an ice tank did crystallize a small amount of tartaric acid. Moving the wine to the freezing outdoors for another week just wore me out.

Sure, it was cold in the car. But re-parking in the shade at eight am and taking my wine daily to work exhausted me. The point was to give the wine time, to settle solids, and cold, to precipitate out tartrate crystals (both of which are anathema to international gurus of wine fashion).

At least no one suspected the tank in the car was a bomb. Yet was it worth it?

After fighting off the fiendish elevator door, we make it home.

Worth a week? Meh!

Hypnos should look for a new day job…or is that night job? Anyway, if you need sleep, these videos are brilliant.

Bask in the magnificence of my racking results:

Diminishing returns...

That paste at the tank’s bottom is actually tartrate salt and other wine solids. Not as much as hoped, but enough to prove it can be done, even with a car.

With wine back in the apartment, I return it to my chill-tank lined with ice. Another racking or two and we should be ready for bottling.

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WANDERING.WINE

Posted on February 14, 2011 by waywardwine

Brace yourself. My hunt for winecraft’s golden fleece, cold stabilization, has brought the glass carboy to the car. The outdoor freeze presents my last chance to chill the wine. But dangers and complications ensue…

A bleary but hopeful the morning after….

A few days pass. I wake up late for work. Only one choice lays before me….

The chariot race to work ended in victory. A few falling leaves turned their points on my windshield, but ever-valiant, I survived.

The weather forecast holds temperatures beneath the forties for the rest of the week. This should be enough to precipitate out any lingering tartrate crystals.

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ELEVATING.ESCAPISM

Posted on February 11, 2011 by waywardwine

It is Thanksgiving break. The students have left. Now is my chance to truly cold stabilize my wine.

A week of ice bucket chilling and siphoning helped to remove most of the floating solids. Yet the wine never got below forty degrees. I need that cold to crystallize the tartaric acid into tartrate salt, so I can rack it out. Otherwise, my wine will never meet the clear aesthetics of wine-opolies the world over.

So out we go into the tundra of the Northeast…

Practical!

My carboy weighs the same as a mini-fridge, so I steal my wife’s office chair. Finding no students beyond the door, I bolt for the elevator.

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REFULFILLING.RACKING

Posted on February 7, 2011 by waywardwine

So cold stabilization by ice water, did it work? After a week, a fair amount of sediment has built up. But is it just yeasts and solids or the holy grail of wine manipulation: tartrate crystals? Time to rack the wine and find out.

Far fewer carpet-related disasters here.

After touching the goop and nearly vomiting, my fingers find some tartaric salts. Paydirt! Sort of.

I give the wine a few more days of chilling and settling and rack again.

Re-readied the Sequel.

Refulfilling.

Delicious?

Once again some dead yeasts, fining earth and that silt of tartaric acid have precipitated to the bottom. But the wine is still hazy. This could take years.

I have a plan. Thanksgiving break will drive students out of the dorm. Only then can I take my carboy into the freezing outdoors without raising suspicion.

Yates Cellars...um, well "cellars"

Inspiration came from a visit to Yates Cellars on Keuka Lake. Since they cannot afford mechanized cold-stable tanks, the snow dusted outdoors work well enough to chill down their vignoles (seen above), even in late October.

It’s just a matter of doing it.

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