I started with fresh buffalo grapes and used only the juice.
I have 5 gallons in a carboy for a week now after the initial
fermentation in a covered bucket.
The rate of bubble has slowed way down to several minutes between
bubble releases at the airlock.
I think the alcohol level is around 12% or higher now.
The wine is an attractive pink hue but very cloudy.
Is this normal ??
Any ideas if it will clear up on its own and how long I should expect
it to take to clear?
Is there something I should be doing now besides waiting a month or so?
Thanks

Kentucky wrote:
-snip=
> The rate of bubble has slowed way down to several minutes between
> bubble releases at the airlock.
-snip-
> The wine is an attractive pink hue but very cloudy.
> Is this normal ??
-as you were going for a rose, this is quite normal, cloudy is yeast
still in suspension looking for sugar to gobble up. one cannot expect
the wine to clear if there is any bubbling going on.
> Any ideas if it will clear up on its own and how long I should expect
> it to take to clear?
-i'm betting its gonna clear on its own, time is your friend. i've had
good luck with grape wine proceeding as grape wine should. 3 months
should do the trick
> Is there something I should be doing now besides waiting a month or so?

-check the sulfite level to make sure it is up to snuff (min 30ppm) and
keep it under air lock.

enjoy a commercial bottle of wine, perhaps?
>

Thanks for the info.
A couple more newbie wine maker questions.
Should I have added Campden tabs when I moved the wine into the carboy
for the first time ??
Wouldn't the sufite shut down the yeast ??
Thanks

Kentucky wrote:

> Should I have added Campden tabs when I moved the wine into the carboy
> for the first time ??
at that point it is still making plenty of CO2 so there wouldn't be a
problem. SO2 is used to prevent oxidation not to kill yeast.
> Wouldn't the sufite shut down the yeast ??
it takes quite a bit of SO2 to make an environment so hostile that wine
yeast will not survive. the initial dosage of SO2 is used to stun the
wild yeast until the wine yeast takes over and kills out the wild stuff.
There is a whole 'nother discussion about bound and free SO2, boiling
down to the free stuff being what does the protection. over time the
free becomes bound and there fore less effective. It has happened when
someone thinks they have killed the yeast (say to keep residual sugar)
and bottled only to have explosive type wines as the SO2 becomes bound
and the yeast start reproducing again. not a good scenario.
> Thanks
>