Vintage 2021: Chenin Blanc Harvest - Part 2

Part 1 of the Chenin Blanc Harvest blogpost brought us up to Monday, October 18, when the grapes had been destemmed and crushed and the juice safely put into a tank for cold settling.
We had a few days of rest that we called PHADD (post-harvest adrenaline deficit disorder, pronounced "fad") where our batteries were pegging on empty and we needed a recharge.
We were back at Jonathan Edwards Winery on Thursday, October 21 to rack the cold settled juice into another tank in preparation for inoculation. My husband hooked up the hoses to the pump and then we cleaned the hoses, as instructed by Jon, making sure that there was no residual water in the hoses. We then hooked up the hoses to the tank with the juice and then to the receiving tank which was nearby. The racking took about 45 minutes for approximately 500 gallons of juice, after which we were able to open the manway to look inside.
Here is a photo of my husband getting the last of the clear juice from the bottom of the settling tank. After getting as much juice as we could, we believe that 15 gallons of yuck went down the drain.

Since the juice was at 54 degrees, we decided to let it warm up overnight and came back on Friday, October 22 to rehydrate our yeast, QA23 and temper it. It's difficult to get our heads around 480 grams of yeast, because we have been dealing with 5 gram packets for the longest time. Last year, I thought that a 2 gallon bucket would work for the rehydration and tempering and I ran into trouble right from the start!
For 480 grams of yeast, rehydration recommends 4.8 liters of water at 100 degrees F. The rehydration takes around 20 minutes and then tempering with juice takes another 20 minutes.

In the picture above, you can see the clarity of the Chenin Blanc juice. The middle photo is the tempered yeast, foaming close to the top of the 5 gallon bucket! Jay took it to the top of the tank to inoculate the Chenin Blanc for us so now we cross our fingers and wait for fermentation!