Secondary Fermentation (Day 10 - 14)
Secondary fermentation is a fairly easy part of the wine making process. It is more a matter of being very systematic with how you do things to ensure things are cleaned and sanitized the right way, the same way, every time.
For this stage you will need to clean and sanitize a glass carboy, a siphon hose, and a bung and airlock
Once the wine has either stopped fermenting or 14 days has past since the yeast was added it is now time to move onto the next stage of the wine making process.
1st Racking (after 10-14 days) Day 10 - 14
Using a siphon hose, siphon the wine out from the primary fermentor into a clean sanitized carboy. If you had made the recipe correctly there should be a little bit of space left at the top of the carboy. That is ok for now. Place the bung and airlock on top of the carboy and let sit for . During this time the wine will likely still be fermenting somewhat and will progressively slow down each proceeding day.
If you are making a wine that is high is malic acid, this is the time to add a malolatic acid culture to your wine. Basically, what this does is eats away at the excessive malic acid (lowering your TA) and smoothes out the wine. To add this sprinkle culture on top of wine and gently stir in.
During primary fermentation your wine will ‘blow off’ a lot of the free S02 that you put in. Without the proper concentration of free S02, your wine will be subject to contamination/oxidation. During primary fermentation approximately 25ppm – 40ppm of the free S02 is blown off. I recommend you replace this before moving on to the next step. As a general rule, after primary fermentation, I add between 35ppm – 40ppm of S02 back into my wine.
Fit a bung and airlock and then store for 1 month.
2nd Racking (after 1 month) Day 40 - 45
After 1 month the must should be nearly finished fermenting. At this point there should also be a considerable amount of sediment found at the bottom of the carboy. It’s now time to rack (siphon) the wine again into another clean sanitized carboy. This time once you rack your wine, you will notice that there is a space left between the wine and the top of the carboy. This space is bad news because it will harbour gases that may negatively affect your wine. To avoid this problem you should ‘top up’ your carboy. You can do this by either adding the same type of wine or a similar type of wine to it. Some people add water, but it is recommended to avoid this as it dilutes your wine and will make it less desirable. Top up your carboy with a similar type wine so that there is approximately 2 inches of space between the wine and the bottom of the bung.
From here on it, after each racking your wine will lose about 25ppm of free S02. You are going to need to replenish this by adding 25ppm S02 (K-meta) to your wine. Refit the bung and airlock and then store for another 2 months
3rd Racking (after 2 months) Day 100 - 105
After two months the wine should be finished fermenting. If no fermentation activity is present it is time to move onto the Degassing, Stabilizing, Sweetening, and Clearing stage. Rack your wine into a clean, sanitized carboy. Use the same tactic as before when racking your wine but this time (DO NOT top up here as you will need a little bit of space for the next phase) and proceed to the next phase.
*Note: If your wine has not finished fermenting (you still see little bubbles rising), give it another month or two in the carboy. Once fermentation ceases, continue on to the next phase. Make sure the wine was at room temperature for the last month. If it is in a cool room the wine may try to trick you into thinking all of the fermentation has stopped when it hasn’t. Otherwise, as soon as it warms up it may start fermenting again. The last thing you want is this to happen once your wine is already bottled. Trust me, it is messy.