Time for a brief update on the wine progress

The fermentation has been going along well for quite a while now and the bubbling has slowed down to a burble every 15 seconds or so. I figured its about time to move it into the secondary fermenter. The primary fermenter is a plastic bucket, the secondary is a big glass jug. I think you're supposed to put it in glass because its non-reactive and does a better job of sealing in/out wanted/unwanted gasses.

I tested the specific gravity with a hydrometer and got a reading of 1.007! The reading before fermentation started was 1.085, so most of the sugar is gone. 0.994 or so is supposed to be very dry, so there is still some left. 0.994 equates to about -1.75 Brix and the 1.007 is about +2 Brix, so there is about 3.75% sugar left. That would be awfully high for a finished wine, but more will disappear in the secondary fermentation. I'm curious to see what it will finish at naturally. I'm hoping for 0.5-1% residual sugar, but I've decided to let the yeast do what it wants. The only other options are to add potassium sorbate (which inhibits the yeast) or to frequently and repeatedly siphon the wine off of any yeast-filled sediment that forms. The latter option is just speculation on my part, but I think it would work eventually.

By the way, siphoning the wine off of the sediment and into a new container is called "racking", so from here on out I'm calling it that. I racked the wine into the secondary fermenter and added another 1/4 teaspoon of potasium metabisulphite. I tested the level afterwards and it only showed up as 15ppm. 40-80 is the number I was aiming for. I'm not sure the test was valid, though, since there were an awful lot of air bubbles getting into my test ampule that could have affected the results. 1/4 teaspoon should be enough to make the concentration 40 ppm just by itself. Well, even if the concentration is somehow too low, I have faith in my juice. Hopefully there won't be any bacterial contamination. Here is a pic of me racking the wine. You can see that it is quite cloudy. There is still quite a bit of yeast and other stuff that needs to settle out.

I tasted a little sip of the juice. Certainly much less sweet than it was before. Now that the sweetness is gone the sourness seems pretty strong. I'm still hoping that more of the grape flavor comes through in the end.

The wine will now sit in the secondary fermenter for at least a month. If it looks like its still really cloudy, I may rack the wine, clean out the glass fermenter and then put it back into that and let it settle more.