Wine Watch 2014 – Day 8 – Stabilization and Clarification

Well, today is finally the day, kiddies. The Mini Wine Paks have fermented long enough and it’s time to add the wine stopper and clearer.

Technically, though, they’re already alcoholic and I could drink them now, as long as I didn’t mind drinking bits of dead yeast and grape skins. Yech.

a photo of some merlot and some chardonnay fermenting next to each other
I bet you’re getting sick of seeing these.

So, here’s how the bags looked before I added anything. There are of course subtle differences from previous days, but since I haven’t bother to have a controlled lighting situation throughout this process, you probably can’t actually see the difference.

a photo of some merlot and some chardonnay with wine stopper added
There’s an interesting reaction going on here, but you can’t see it, because this is a still image.

I added the wine stopper and shook the bags vigorously. This killed the yeast and stopped the reaction and the bubbling in the bags. If the yeast isn’t killed completely, my bags could undergo a secondary fermentation and my wines will be fizzy.

a photo of some merlot and some chardonnay with wine clearer added to them
This doesn’t look very clear to me…

I added the two clearers to  the wines. This cause the particles in the bags to start falling to the bottom.

a photo of some sediment in the bottom of the merlot's fermenting bag
Ew.

Within minutes, there was a large amount of sediment forming on the bottom of the bags. Since the nozzles on the bags are also near the bottom, I’m wondering how I can drain the bags without any of this sediment coming with the wine?