Well, naturally, I'm behind schedule. Wine making is truly a procrastinator's hobby. I SHOULD have completed the steps for Day 140 on the Jack batch about a month or more ago, but am now finally done. I will say it took a lot longer to degas than Jack's instructions suggested. Having said that, I've never found any kit instructions to really fess up to how long it takes to degas. Usually I use a brake bleeder vacuum pump to degas, but in the interests of science, I decided to use my drill mounted whip on these 3 kits.
I needed to degas off and on for about 3 days to get Jack to an acceptable level. But now he is sitting in his carboy, waiting to be filtered in about a month. As for taste, it's still extremely young tasting, with a pronounced oak profile coming though. I think I can taste the wine it will become somewhere in the background.
Less than 6 weeks to bottling! Then the real waiting begins.
