# Final gravity...



## darrenct83 (Sep 26, 2010)

I am making my first wine that is not from a grape wine kit. It is a wild berry wine made primarily from huckleberries, but also has thimbleberries, wild raspberry, and blackberries. I measured the starting gravity at 1.094 after the sugar was added. It was a little difficult to get started, but fermentation finally kicked in. I started it over a month ago. The gravity is now 1.026 and seems to be holding steady there. It is my understanding that the fermentation shouldn't stop until it is under 1.000. I am worried that I may not have done my original gravity readings properly because I wasn't used to sampling juice with mashed berries. If my original gravity was way higher than 1.094 by accident would the final gravity stop at 1.026? I tasted the wine how it is, and it seems to taste good. It did not taste sweet. 

Any suggestions on where to go from here. Thanks for the help.


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## djrockinsteve (Sep 26, 2010)

You can try adding some super ferment. With it stopping there there won't be a high enough alcohol for it to last long in the bottle. Not having the recipe makes it really hard to troubleshoot. Did you add any nutrient, what yeast, is it in a carboy or open container etc. These are a few things we need to see to help you.


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## JasonH (Sep 26, 2010)

I like to give a fermentation a healthy dose of O2 before i consider it stuck.


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## darrenct83 (Sep 26, 2010)

*More info*

I started the fermentation in a pale and moved the batch to a 1 gallon glass jug fitted with an airlock and stopper after a couple weeks. The SG at that time was around 1.04x. I should have written down the original recipe, but didn't. I used yeast nutrient and acid blend. I think about 1 tsp of each. I'm not really new to fermenting. I've been making beer for a while, but I've never had a batch just stop. I haven't had a lot of experience with wine yet though.


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## Wade E (Sep 26, 2010)

You probably left behind too much yeast resulting in this stuck fermentation. Do you have another batch of wine fermenting that is almost done so as to rack off of that and rack your stuck batch onto?


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## Tom (Sep 26, 2010)

darrenct83 said:


> I am making my first wine that is not from a grape wine kit. It is a wild berry wine made primarily from huckleberries, but also has thimbleberries, wild raspberry, and blackberries. I measured the starting gravity at 1.094 after the sugar was added. It was a little difficult to get started, but fermentation finally kicked in. I started it over a month ago. The gravity is now 1.026 and seems to be holding steady there. It is my understanding that the fermentation shouldn't stop until it is under 1.000. I am worried that I may not have done my original gravity readings properly because I wasn't used to sampling juice with mashed berries. If my original gravity was way higher than 1.094 by accident would the final gravity stop at 1.026? I tasted the wine how it is, and it seems to taste good. It did not taste sweet.
> 
> Any suggestions on where to go from here. Thanks for the help.



What kind of yeast did you use? Was it bakers yeast or wine yeast?


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## darrenct83 (Sep 27, 2010)

Tom said:


> What kind of yeast did you use? Was it bakers yeast or wine yeast?



I used a wine yeast from my local homebrew supply store. 



> You probably left behind too much yeast resulting in this stuck fermentation.



I would disagree. When I transferred the wine out of the pale quite a bit of all the sediment got stirred up and came along with it. 



> I like to give a fermentation a healthy dose of O2 before i consider it stuck.



I am thinking about adding another 1/2 tsp yeast nutrient and stirring it around to give it some more O2. Is this a bad idea for any reason?


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## Tom (Sep 27, 2010)

B careful adding nutrient. You can get a volcano. 1st dissolve it and then slowly add to must and stir slowly


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## BobF (Sep 27, 2010)

I would add nutrient as Tom suggested, then get a good yeast starter going with 1118 or equiv. Add small amounts of your stuck wine to the starter every couple of hours until it's going really strong, then pitch.


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