Must Rack Must

Wine Making Part II
The first part of this misson is here.
This is the second major step.

Our pear tree below, I'm sure the family that planted it would be proud that we are using and enjoying it. There's a much bigger tree behind it, don't let it fool you, it's a bit scrawny.

This is the lone sand pear tree

 One thing I love about natural fruits and veggies, they don't all look the same.  Some have a lot of character. =)

"C" for? how did this happen?

 My first day of working in a dental office, I learned that clean and sterile are two different things.  Something can be clean and not sterile, sterile and not clean.  What we need is both, in dentistry, and winemaking, thank you to my orthodontist.

sterilize all of the equipment

Ok, equipment is clean and sterilized.  Now simply siphon from the primary fermenter (the plastic bucket) into the secondary fermenter (the glass carboy).

primary fermenter

into secondary fermenter

Doesn't look much like wine does it?

There are still pieces of pear floating around here and there.

An auto-siphon, very very handy

Fitted an airlock and bung to the glass carboy.  The airlock allows carbon dioxide produced during fermentation to be released while keeping oxygen from reaching the must.  During primary fermentation oxygen is a good thing because it helps the yeast grow and feed off of the sugar.  But during secondary fermentation (or ever after, really) oxidation is avoided because it affects the wine quality.  It loses the fruity flavor, can cause browning (think of an apple that has been cut and left out), and bacterial growth among other issues. Some info found here and here.  But sometimes, a little bit of oxygen is a good thing, this is why cork is used as a stopper during the aging process.  It allows a very small amount very slowly into the bottle. Yay, new knowledge.

And having read all of the information on oxidation, I recall that I did read before I started this whole process that the smaller the surface area of the must, the better.  And as you can tell, this is about as big an area as it can be in this container.  Ideally it would be full to the neck of the container.  I also read that you can fill the bottle up with similar wine to fill the container.  Uh....

Ok, so bubble away!  This for some reason reminds me of the witches' chant in Macbeth (I'll have to look that up). Bubble bubble, toil and trouble, is that how it goes?

left over mush

Next move in 3 weeks, rerack after residue has settled.  Bloop.  Bloop.

You know that this bubbler attracted a curious cat.  And I swear if she messes up this wine, I'm gonna......nothing, I'm sure.  I remember my dad saying something about a cat and his mulberry wine years ago.

For more reading pleasure:

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

Some of those ingredients are hard to find, unless you're a witch of course, then you probably have your sources.