Racking the Pinot

     The specific gravity of the the Pinot Grigio was at .1998 so I was good to go for racking the must into the secondary fermenter.

But first I had to clean and sanitize everything that was coming in contact with my wine, these 6 gallon carboys can be a pain to clean up

After cleaning, sanitizing, and rinsing, I was ready.  I needed to siphon off about 2 liters of the pinot grigio juice to make room for the kiwi/melon flavoring and to stir in the stabilizing and clearing chemicals.  Here is my makeshift siphoning set up, I don't have an auto siphon or anything fancy so I do it by mouth.  I managed to get a good siphon on the second try.  The wine does not taste good by any means at this point, it tastes like skunk beer.




 

I did lose suction towards the bottom but that is fine with me because you don't want to take any of this gunk along with the juice.  That is the settling called Lees.   It is made up of dead yeasts and sediments and it is important to get ride of as much of it as possible so you have a nice clean and fine wine.

The next step involved adding sulfite, potassium sorbate, and the kiwi/melon flavoring or finishing blend.  Then came the stirring.  The insane amount of stirring needed is called Degassing.  That is when you try to get as much Co2 out as you can without adding too much O2.  Most people do it with a drill and an attachment called a whip but alas, I'm broke so I used a spoon.  After a crap load of stirring and a few more chemical packets this is what it looked like:

Its much more clear now just after a few hours.  Now it will sit for at least 14 more days before bottling....So I need to find something else to brew up in the mean time!