I seem to have painted myself into a corner

Winemaking
1

Over the holiday season I was quite busy and ended up with 5 gallons of cider, 5 gallons of graff, 5 gallons of beer and 12 gallons of chardonnay in carboys/buckets at the same time. I then realized that everything needed to be moved into a different carboy/bucket/keg and I was down to one 5 gallon glass carboy. I did a little razzle dazzle with my planning and got everything where it needed to be.

However, now I’m stuck.

I’ve got my two 6 gallon carboys full of wine and they’ve been clarified. The next step calls for moving them into another 6 gallon carboy and topping them off. Unfortunately I only have two 6 gallon carboys and… well… they’re full of the wine that I need to move. I do have two 6.5 gallon ale pails that are empty as well as a 5 gallon better bottle that’s free.

I’ve got three ideas and since I rarely do wine, I’d like to get some thoughts on them.

  1. Move the first carboy into a bucket, don’t top off, clean the now empty carboy and rack the 2nd carboy into that one.

  2. Same as step one except rack the wine from the bucket back into the 2nd carboy once it’s empty and clean (is oxidation a concern here?)

  3. Rack first carboy into 5 gallon carboy and save any extra to top off second carboy once it’s transfered into the clean, now empty, first one (to avoid topping off with tap water).

And is topping off really that neccessary if it’s only going to be in the carboy for an additional 4-6 weeks? Would hitting it with CO2 be helpful?

Thanks for any and all advice… I’m a such a wine noob :cheers:

2

if it’s wine you need to top off!

3

Buy more fermentors :roll:

4

I really don’t see a big problem with any of those meathods. I’d say whatever exposes the wine the least go for it. I always do at least one extra racking through my process anyway to remove excess sediment. Obviously, too much contact with oxygen has a negative effect in the long run, but it is going to happen to some degree no matter how hard you try to avoid it.

Plan B. If you really are looking to avoid extra moving steps, why move the wine in the first place? You could just leave it where it is. If it has been degassed, stabilized and fined everything will settle out at this point. Don’t see why you can’t just bottle from there (though personally I do rack it at least once or twice more)

Topping Up…over emphasized! I completely agree to it in theory, and it never really hurts, but as you emphasized, in 4-6 weeks it is not likely to be an issue. From the kit industry’s point of view, getting the wine in the bottle is the best way to prevent oxydation. They tend to recoment against long term carboy aging. But topping up is definately recomended if it sits long term without bottling.

Plan C. Rack into smaller vessels (5 gal) and fill these right to the top. what is left you could bottle, drink, stick in 1 gal jugs. Again this has all been processed and is just looking to settle out?