Day 17-19 | Stage 3 Day 1-3 | My wine likes to move it, move it

Tuesday March 23rd.

I walk in the door after a long day and get to work.
I clean the hydrometer and drop it in. KABOOM, .992. We are ready to rock!
I wash my hands, clean and sanitize my tools and the PF (Primary Fermenter).
I set the glass carboy on one of my dining room chairs and start transferring the wine to the PF on my kitchen floor. It took about 10 minutes total.

The top of the red is .990 - This reads about .992

That's me with my tickets... It's transfer time!

All transferred over. Time to retrieve the hydrometer and clean the Carboy

Here is the left over sediment. It's almost like a wine sediment sand barge in a ocean of purple goodness.

Kitchen Sink Murders

Back into the Glass Carboy ever so gently.

Now it's time for the degassing process.What do I do in the degassing process you ask?
Well let me tell you, I have to Move it, Move it. The wine has residual CO2  levels left over from the fermentation process that must be removed before bottling. So I've been stirring the wine with my big ole plastic spoon per the instructions. I swirl it one way making a whirlpool (similar to the one seen in Pirates of the Caribbean 3 at the end of the movie when they are pirate ship fighting), then switch directions and swirl it the opposite direction. It creates wine foam and releases CO2.An hour or so later I'm still degassing... and degassing... and degassing. I only expected this to take an hour or so but it's been taking FOREVER. I've been yelling "UNLEASH THE CO2" at my wine.... it doesn't appear to be helping.  I seal the carboy up and let I chill out a bit to dissipate the wine foam overnight. I've been at this stage for a few days now.

Here is my big plastic stick.

And here is me stirring the wine with my big plastic stick.

I would also like to mention, for those of you who actually made it down this far, I tried my wine and it is pretty damn good. It tastes like a very decent bottle of something off the shelf. I can't wait to try it when it ages a bit. The neighbors wanted a glass of it right then. I thought about it myself.