How to Make Wine | Fig Wine | Re-Racking to Remove Sediment 

Glad you enjoyed this one and found it useful!

Sorry for the late reply, always forget to check this channel lol... Happy New Year!!

Thank you! ❤️

Hey Franchesca. The fig wine is one of our favorite wines to make. We've finished 3 batches of this wine, each time back sweetening just a bit more. The extra hint of sweetness really brings out the fig essence in the finished wine. Oh and do let it age. We always let our wines age for at least a year in the bottle, but we just cracked a 2 year old batch of fig wine and it is really aging well.

Sorry about the delayed response here John, for some reason this didn't prompt us! With the short period of time these sit in the secondary before bottling we usually don't worry about it too much. Ideally you would use a small enough container to close that gap.

@@HealthyFarmLiving that’s okay thanks for answering-maybe you have ESP, because I just transferred my wine off the lees last night. Specific gravity was lower than what you had at this stage-.988. I guess this is fine?

Hey Daniel! That's a great question and for now we're either putting it on the compost pile (if there's a lot of it) or putting it into the septic system.

Wine leaving is also great for baking honey cookies

Great question. You should be fine bringing it back to room temp to bottle, but you can also bottle the wine when it's cold (not freezing) if you're concerned. The only issue you might face is the wine trying to bring oxygen into the bottle as it warms back up. If it's corked, in theory, it could compromise the seal. We don't fret too much about some oxidation prior to bottling, so I would bring it up to room temp to ensure it's sealed well during aging. BTW, we just started drinking our peach wine about a month ago from last year and it is a beautiful, light wine. Enjoy this one!

@@HealthyFarmLiving thanks for the info! We couldn't wait for the peach wine to sit. I'm having a glass now. 🤭 Next time we will gather enough to bottle and age.

Thanks Jan. We use that for most of our cooking. These days the stainless seems to be there for looks more than anything!

@@HealthyFarmLiving that’s all we use pretty much unless we’re making soup of something acidic. Even our grills are cast iron lol

Great question and it depends. If it's early on in the process and there is still some fermentation going on, you can add something like white grape juice. Otherwise, yes you'll want to add distilled water to top it off if there's more than an inch or two of head space. After the first rack or two, we don't typically lose much liquid as there is less and less sediment you're dealing with. Ideally, you'll get the majority of the sediment off in the first re-rack with very little fermentation still occurring. With this, you may not need to re-rack until you get to the back sweetening stage. For us that's usually around month 2 or so in the secondary.

We move them VERY carefully with 2 of us holding it at the same time. This year we had 2 separate batches of wine that both topped 6 gallons, so we're getting used to working with them these days!

Ha! Yup, it sure does!

I know, right? I'm not sure what it is about fig wine, but it's the only type of fruit we've had that accumulates that much at the first re-rack! We've done 4 versions of this wine with slight changes and it still has that much.

@@HealthyFarmLiving maybe a lot of nutrients for the yeast to build and thrive

@@janstewart2041 definitely a part of it I think.

😂😂 , perfect timing!

@@HealthyFarmLiving Great video thank you!

@@zackzimmer7167 glad you enjoyed it Zack...and thanks for the chuckle!