Primary Fermantation question

Winemaking
1

I started my first EVER fermantation on Sunday afternoon. By Monday afterenoon I peeked in since the airlock was not showing any bubbles. Inside there were thousands of very small bubbles on top of the must and the must gained about 3 degrees F. So I was pretty sure things were on the right track. Now this morning i peeked in and there were only sporatic bubbles, maybe 2-3 per second but not what I had seen the day before. I am making a port wine 3 gallon kit. The primary fermantator is an 8 gallon bucket so there is a lot of head space. The bucket cover doesnt close tightly and basically lays on top. I suppose that is why I am not seeing bubbles in the airlock. sorry to ramble on , I just want to give as much info as possible. So my question is…do things sound Ok or should I be worried? Thank you in advance. -Frank

2

Which port kit are we talking about.

Everything sounds about right to me. But just as a heads up, specialty wine kits like this can be prone to issues most other standard kits are not.

  1. What temperature are you at?

  2. If you have to make a sugar addition, make sure it is to the primary - do not rack first.

  3. Be warned that these kits usually take longer at every stage than the instuctions suggest. This is fine and normal - plan on this being a 10-12 week kit as opposed to a 6 week kit - the clearing stage at the end can take a while, and I usually give them at least an extra week or two before stabilizing.

  4. If you have any issues reaching your FG, or if you have any other issues at all, just post back on this thread and we can help you out.

3

The kit is winexpert speciale. The temp went from 71* at start up to 74*. I will add the sugar to the primary. Should I be taking a SG test every day or wait a few days?

4

Your temperatures are probably good enough, though I would make sure you don’t drop below 70 to avoid any issues.

You do not need to take daily tests. I never bother with any gravity readings with this kit, until about the third week or so.

My schedule:

  1. Start in Primary
  2. Chaptalize on day 7
  3. Rack on day 12 (ish)
  4. Let sit 1-3 weeks (no rush).
  5. Take gravity and process.
  6. Let sit a good month or so to clear.
  7. Rack and let clear again (could let sit another month or more if you like)
  8. Rack and bottle

This is how I would do it without filtering. If you plan on filtering I would replace steps 7-8 with 7) filter and bottle after 2 days.