Monday, May 30 2011

Basics to Back

Sixty pounds of wine and smooth glass . . . what could go wrong?

Just back from The Winemaker conference and a few days in California, to a deskful of paperwork and a million messages. Fortunately for me, Joanne, one of Winexpert's Customer Service people gave me a dandy entry for the blog--and an timely one for any winemaker over the age of . . . well, let's just say none of us are getting any younger, and there are mornings when my body seems to wake up about half an hour after I do.

Don G of Kamloops wrote in to our customer service department with a pertinent question:

 I am finding it more and more difficult to deal with the weight 23L carboys. (I'm an old beggar - 18L is my current limit) After fermentation they need to be carried about 60ft from the fermentation area (the laundry room) to where I have my storage cellar. How can the wine kit instructions be modified to accommodate these limitations ? I have 18.9L carboys available as well as 4L jugs. What do you advise?     (This is me saying --- HELP !)

Don

Joanne came back with some great advice:

Don,

I'm no spring chicken myself, but make wine at home in my kitchen all the time, sometimes here in the lab at Winexpert and for a few years in an on premises winemaking shop.

I always follow the instructions exactly and I don't recommend changing them in any way. Following the instructions, keeping the wine warm and my equipment clean and sanitized are the secrets to perfect results every time.

However, I do have some tactics to avoid wrecking my back:

1. Never place anything heavy on the floor, if you are going to have to bend over and pick it up later, e.g., a wine kit, full fermenter or carboy.
2. Place your primary fermenter on a surface about a foot high before pouring in the contents of the juice bag. I have a little stool for this purpose.
3. Lift the primary bucket to its fermentation destination before topping up with water.
4. Without bending, use thigh muscles to lift fermenter in one-food stages to a surface 4 feet high.
5. Stand on the 1-foot high stool to add water to primary (which is now on a 4-foot high surface), stir thoroughly and sprinkle yeast.
6. When racking from one vessel to another, have your source vessel 4 feet high and your receiving vessel on a surface about a foot off the floor (on the aforementioned stool).
7. As in 4, lift the full secondary carboy in stages back up to the 4-foot high surface.
8. Purchase a clear plastic carboy and give that a try--they are much lighter and the chance of breakage is much reduced.   
9. I don't do this, but I know people who do: If you have a Buon Vino Mini-Jet or Super-Jet filter machine, you can use it (minus the filter pads) to pump from one vessel to another. Note that both vessels must be on the same level. You will soon burn out your machine if you try pumping up-hill!
10. Another labour-saving device is the drill-mounted Wine Whip, which makes the required stirring quick and easy.
11. Moving vessels from room to room can be made easier by using some kind of very sturdy wheeled trolley or even floor-level planter-holders with wheels on them.

Cheers,
Joanne

All good tips: you only get one back, so it's best to keep it in shape!

The first of two items Joanne mentioned is a PTFE carboy. There are several types on the market, and I strongly endorse the one we carry, made by the fine folks at the Vintage Shop.

Light, clear and unlike glass, actually bounces when dropped

Made of the same type of resin used in soda bottles, they don't contain any BPA, they're as resistant to oxygen as glass (oxygen mainly gets in past the bung anyway) and they're incredibly light and tough. I'm not buying another glass carboy again, especially with the price of Italian glass going through the roof.

The other item is our three-pronged wine whip.

Ye olde cat o' three tails

Designed to mount on a drill, this whip ensures extremely thorough stirring. Unlike competing whips, this one is made from HDPE plastic, which allows the little whips on the end to flex and spread out under rotation.

 

Check out the video above. The payoff is at about 2:24 when we demo the whip. Let's see your spoon do that! Because the whip ends spread out, they go much faster, tearing through the wine to release vast volumes of gas very quickly and efficiently. I'd have to say if Father's Day was coming up, your favorite winemaker might just need to find one in his stocking. Or, uh, wherever he keeps his winemaking stuff.

Thanks to Joanne for a great answer, and to Don for a great question.

Posted by Joanne Harris AT 3:40PM

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