Can I Use a Plastic Water Jug As A Secondary?

Here’s a very interesting question I received via my blog this week:

“Can I use the plastic 5-gallon carboys that I have water delivered in for starting the secondary fermentation? What I would like to do is start some strawberry and blueberry wine when the fruits are in season – which is when we are here in Maine.

I would like to get the secondary fermentation started here and then take the carboys home where I can finish the process and bottle it. My concern is if these water bottles will leave a taste in the wine.”

Here’s how I answered:

Great question!

As long as the water bottle is made of PET then you should be good to go.

I actually own a plastic carboy and there’s no issue with a plastic taste being transferred. I wrote an article about it on my blog called “Winemaking Designer Carboys” if you’re interested.

I’m curious what you think about using plastic vs. glass carboys and so reply to this blog post and let me know!

How To Make Wine: Different Ways To Degas Your Wine

One of the most important aspects of wine making is degassing once the fermentation is completed and this blog post will show you a variety of videos which demonstrate different ways of accomplishing this.

This is the part in any wine kit instructions where they say to “stir vigorously” (with a spoon or drill attachment) for a minimum of 2 minutes so that you can flatten your wine out.  If you’ve ever tasted homemade wine that hasn’t been properly degassed you can tell as it has a bit of a “fizzy” taste to it and it just doesn’t taste very good.

Video 1: The Basics of Wine Degassing

The other issue you’ll have if you don’t degass your wine properly is that your cork could pop out of the bottle or, worse case, your bottle could potentially explode due to the build up in pressure in the bottle.

In An Ingenius Way To Degas Your Wine I showed how you could use a wine vacuum pump (i.e. what you could use to suck out the air in a half-drunk bottle of wine) to degas your wine.

Video 2: Using A Wine Vacuum Pump To Degas Your Wine

I use this method with every batch of wine I’ve made since I discovered it, and the results have been fantastic! The biggest thing you’ll notice is that your wine comes out nice and silky smooth.

The brand of wine vacuum I used in the above video is “Snail”. You can find it by going here (it’s about 2/3rds of the way down the page).

Here are a few other videos that I found on YouTube that demonstrate different ways you can degas your wine. Hopefully one or more of them peaks your interest!

Video 3: Degassing Your Wine Using Your Washing Machine

Video 4: Degassing Your Wine Using A FoodSaver

Other methods I’ve heard used to degas your wine include:

1. The “Manual Method” where you grab your carboy and shake it with your hands (although this sounds really messy if the airlock pops off).
2. The “Sparging Method” where you place an air stone with a tube attached to it on the bottom of your carboy and pump nitrogen through it. The nitogren is an inert gas and will force the carbon dioxide out of your wine. This is a bit more involved (and expensive) and is one I’ve never tried myself.

It ultimately doesn’t matter which method you use so long as you do it!

If you have a different method you use please let me know by leaving a comment below!

To your wine making success,

- Scott “The Wine Making Guy”

Great Idea For Labelling Your Carboy During Wine Making

Click To View a Larger Photo

Here’s how the author did it:

Recently, I have had a lot of request about where I got the signs I have on my carboys.   Well I just took some Mardi Gras beads (everyone has some of these around the house) and cut them to about 10 inches.   Then I cut up some thin plastic, which I believe was excess bathroom shower liner I had cut off some time ago.  I made small squares for the labels, and glued the Mardi Gras beads to them.   Then I just used my label maker for the wine type and year.   I kept mine in separate lines so I can don’t have to print out full labels each time.  I’ll just keep them from each type and change the year with each new batch.   If you’ve got a good idea, be sure to mention it in the wine forum where everyone is constantly learning.

I’m typically not as fancy as I write info onto either masking tape or a Post-It Note (see below) and then place that on the carboy

Masking Tape Carboy Label

Post-It Note Carboy Label

For me these are more functional (and easy to do) but I thought the above idea was pretty cool nonetheless.

How do you tag your carboys when aging your wine?

- Scott “The Wine Making Guy”