# Floating berries suffocating yeast?



## floridacelt (Aug 1, 2016)

Hello!
I'm on my first make-from-scratch-batch of frozen strawberry wine and am a bit paranoid about stuck fermentation.

I started with 18 lb frozen strawberries for a 5 gallon batch, which I partially crushed while in the primary fermenter. I read that leaving the pulp free in the must is absolutely fine and that in fact you don't even need to crush the berries. 

Anyway, I pitched the yeast (Red Star Cote des Blancs) last night after waiting 24hr for the pot-meta to dissipate. I did re-hydrate them in a 1/4 cup of 102 F water before pitching. Starting S.G. was 1.094. 

My paranoia is derived from the fact that the surface of the must is dominated by strawberry remains and when I stir, the must bubbles up. Is it possible that the flotsam is suffocating the yeast? After one day of fermentation, my S.G. has only reduced to about 1.091.


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## Julie (Aug 1, 2016)

Punch it down and stir it twice a day and you will be fine


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## Runningwolf (Aug 1, 2016)

Listen to Julie!


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## floridacelt (Aug 1, 2016)

Thank you!


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## Arne (Aug 2, 2016)

Now you have tried it with the fruit floating loose in the must. Next time try it with some kind of fermenting bag. Think you will find it is much easier to get all the pulp out of the wine with a bag. Either way is just fine, makes it easier with the bag, tho. Arne.


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## wineforfun (Aug 2, 2016)

Arne said:


> Next time try it with some kind of fermenting bag.



Yep, do this ^^^^^^^^ It will make life much easier next time.


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## Scooter68 (Aug 2, 2016)

Anyone ever tried to make something to drop in the bucket that will keep a fermentation bag from blocking the air and gas release? I know that sounds a little anal retentive but just wondering. Still need to stir but if you can keep a bout 1/3 of the surface area open to breath during that primary fermentation. 
Just asking / searching for clues.


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## floridacelt (Aug 2, 2016)

So, knowing that I do have quite a bit of suspended sediment throughout the must, what should I do when I rack to the secondary? Should I pass the entire must through a strainer into the carboy to catch the big stuff and then wait for the smaller sediment to settle (will that ever happen)? 

Will sparkelloid work to drop a lot of the smaller stuff prior to bottling? 

Thanks for the help!


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## richmke (Aug 2, 2016)

Scooter68 said:


> Anyone ever tried to make something to drop in the bucket that will keep a fermentation bag from blocking the air and gas release?



It is a normal part of the process






In any case, you really need to stir in order to help release the CO2, and mix in O2. Much faster than what happens at at the surface of a still must.


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## drainsurgeon (Aug 2, 2016)

If you're at 1.0 or lower you need to get an air lock on it ASAP. Personally, I would get a strainer bag (the one I got from the local wine shop fits snugly over the top of my primary) and a second primary (if you have one) and pour the contents from one to the other and catch whats left of the strawberries. That way you can still squeeze them out to get every drop of flavor possible. THEN rack into carboy and airlock until dry. K-meta, sorbate, clear (superkleer or what ever you use) and back sweeten. Good luck.


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## Johny99 (Aug 2, 2016)

Julie said:


> Punch it down and stir it twice a day and you will be fine



Absolutely, if you don't you'll get nasty stuff growing on the fruit on top.


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## Scooter68 (Aug 3, 2016)

floridacelt said:


> So, knowing that I do have quite a bit of suspended sediment throughout the must, what should I do when I rack to the secondary? Should I pass the entire must through a strainer into the carboy to catch the big stuff and then wait for the smaller sediment to settle (will that ever happen)?
> 
> Will sparkelloid work to drop a lot of the smaller stuff prior to bottling?
> 
> Thanks for the help!


A couple of articles that should help:

http://www.eckraus.com/blog/when-to-move-wine-to-secondary-fermenter

http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/qa2.asp (Quoted in part below)

"Extracting Wine from Gross Lees


Many, many people have written asking how to extract all that
wine from their gross lees. Here are some thoughts. Jack Keller

A number of fruit put out a lot of pulp that forms what are called "gross lees." Gross lees are loose and harbor a lot of liquid in them, whereas "fine lees" are like a silt and are composed mostly of dead yeast cells. Mango, papaya, pineapple, apples, and most stoned fruit (peaches, cherries, nectarines, apricots, chokecherries, etc.) lay down a thick layer of "gross lees." These contain many, many times the amount of liquid in them than do the "fine lees" of dead yeast one normally sees.

The preferred method is to rack the wine normally and when you get to the layer of gross lees, put a large plastic funnel on top of your clean secondary lined with a double layer of sanitized muslin cloth. Then siphon the gross lees into the funnel. You'll have to pinch the siphon hose to slow down the flow. When the funnel is full of pulpy lees, gather the muslin and squeeze the juice out. Dump the compacted pulp, wash out the muslin, and continue doing this until you get down to the fine lees. Doing this, you'll recover more than 80% of the liquid you lost by leaving the gross lees undisturbed.

When the lees are thick with semi-compacted pulp, not gross but not fine either, I rack and then transfer my gross lees into a tall, skinny, cylindrical jar made for storing spaghetti. I have a Tupperware top that fits it that I drilled to accept a #2 bung with airlock After 2-3 weeks in this jar, the lees compact well and I can rack the clear wine off the top. This procedure usually yields 300 to 500 ml of additional wine." (End of quote)


With strawberries loose in the must IF there is a lot of material floating still as one of your photos shows, you could run a strainer around the top to capture that material. (That's why a fermentation bag is such a big help - it makes it easy to capture the gross lees without straining) If the SG is down to about 1.020 you should move to a carboy(s) for the slower secondary fermentation stage just skim any floating pulp off the top and transfer to carboy(s) Most folks normally move from the bucket to the carboys when the SG is between 1.030 and 1.010. At that point fermentation has slowed down and the off gassing can be handled readily with the airlock. 

When the fermentation is completed then you can rack from one carboy to another and leave the lees at the bottom of the carboy - that's one advantage to having it in a clear carboy rather than a fermentation bucket at that point. 


I'd take some time to read the above and other related articles on Jack Kellers site as well as at the eckraus.com site. If you read much here you will see both of these sites quoted a lot - they are great sources of reference.


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## wineforfun (Aug 3, 2016)

Scooter68 said:


> Anyone ever tried to make something to drop in the bucket that will keep a fermentation bag from blocking the air and gas release? I know that sounds a little anal retentive but just wondering. Still need to stir but if you can keep a bout 1/3 of the surface area open to breath during that primary fermentation.
> Just asking / searching for clues.



Not quite following this. Are you fermenting with a lid snapped on and an airlock? Is that what you are referring to?

My lid is on loose, I just remove it and either a) start stirring with bag in tow or b) hold the bag above the primary and stir.


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## Scooter68 (Aug 3, 2016)

One more point - if you are starting this as a hobby - I'd go to the local fabric store, hobby lobby etc and buy a yard of unbleached, non-permanent press muslin cloth. The courser weave the better - You can use that as a cover for buckets straining etc. I bought one yard (36 x 36) cut up into 2 bucket covers (18 x 18) 4 9x9 straining cloths and a bunch of smaller cloth bottle covers for my carboy when they sit around empty. Just wash by hand with some dishwashing liquid, rinse well and then you can rinse once more with your santizing solution before you store them. After mine dried I put them in marked zip-lock bags to keep track of them. While you are there pick up a small skeen of yarn and you can use that to tie around carboys, bottles etc with tags and as indicators of what has been sanitized ready for use and to keep that cover tied down tight over the bucket during primary fermentation.


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## Scooter68 (Aug 3, 2016)

wineforfun said:


> Not quite following this. Are you fermenting with a lid snapped on and an airlock? Is that what you are referring to?
> 
> My lid is on loose, I just remove it and either a) start stirring with bag in tow or b) hold the bag above the primary and stir.




No- I only use a cloth cover during primary. I just find that the straining bag inflates and sometimes rises up into my cloth bucket cover. IF I can keep a part of the surface open maybe the bag won't blow up a much. As mentioned still need to stir once or twice a day during primary but hopefully this might stop some overflow or drying out of the pulp in the bag. Just another wild hair thought.


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## Arne (Aug 4, 2016)

Scooter68 said:


> No- I only use a cloth cover during primary. I just find that the straining bag inflates and sometimes rises up into my cloth bucket cover. IF I can keep a part of the surface open maybe the bag won't blow up a much. As mentioned still need to stir once or twice a day during primary but hopefully this might stop some overflow or drying out of the pulp in the bag. Just another wild hair thought.



I used the unbleached muslin for the jalapinos whens the bag kept inflating. It was the sugars in there and yeast got thru to them. They were making alcohol and spitting out co2. Squeeze the bag down and it would pop up by the next morning. All my ferment bags float, but the mesh ones do not capture the co2. Think it is the fruit floating as it has a lower s.g. than the must. When the sugar is burned up, the s.g. goes down and the fruits tend to sink. This is just what I think, not what I know for sure. Makes sense to me, tho and this evening after a couple of glasses of wine it should make even more sense. LOL, Arne.


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## Scooter68 (Aug 4, 2016)

ARNE - Yes, Muslin would not be a great choice for fermentation bags and it's a pretty tight filter material too so using it early on in the aging process while there are still significant lees in the carboy would really slow the racking process as well. So far I've only used the muslin cloth for bottle covers (While storing them empty) and for covering my primary fermentation.


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## cintipam (Aug 4, 2016)

Scooter I made my own fermentation bags out of muslin and found them so unsatisfactory I went back to paint strainer bags. The puffing up was impossible to keep up with, and I found that despite using a serger reinforced by a sewing machine straight stitch the fermentation bags often tore open when I squeezed them. I really wanted to make my own, but now just use muslin for bucket covers etc like you described.

I considered using cheesecloth, as that loose weave would not puff up but it also tore when squeezing.

Back to paint strainers for me.

Pam in cinti


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## Scooter68 (Aug 4, 2016)

Agreed - muslin for Bucket covers and bottle covers and for moderately fine straining, but as a fermentation bag nope.


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## Arne (Aug 5, 2016)

cintipam said:


> Scooter I made my own fermentation bags out of muslin and found them so unsatisfactory I went back to paint strainer bags. The puffing up was impossible to keep up with, and I found that despite using a serger reinforced by a sewing machine straight stitch the fermentation bags often tore open when I squeezed them. I really wanted to make my own, but now just use muslin for bucket covers etc like you described.
> 
> I considered using cheesecloth, as that loose weave would not puff up but it also tore when squeezing.
> 
> ...



We found some nylon type material in a fabric store. Had about the same weave as the strainer bag I bought in the local brew store. Kathy made some bags out of it for me. They are pretty tough and let the must flow thru and most of the fruit chunks stay in. I now have several different sizes of strainer bags. Arne.


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## wineforfun (Aug 5, 2016)

I get 3 strainer bags for $2.96 at Menards. No more than I use them, I figure for $1 per bag, I will use them, then discard them.


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## floridacelt (Aug 8, 2016)

Figured I'd post an update to see if I got any more of this exceptionally helpful feedback.

1. Racked into secondary carboy at S.G. 1.010 (incidentally, it only took 3 days to get here from 1.094. This was done through a nylon fermenting bag to catch the gross lees. I then squeezed these out into the secondary. 
2. Placed air lock and awaited completion of fermentation, which occurred on day 6 of fermentation. F.S.G. = 0.992. 
3. Went ahead and racked into bucket for degassing. 5 campden tablets for 5gal of wine. 
4. Discovered I racked too soon because the sediment amounted to a full gallon of the wine so I had to put a lot of it back into the secondary fermenter to top up. 
5. The day after pot-meta, I added 2.5 tsp K-sorbate for stabilization.
6. I now plan to wait at least two weeks before racking again and sweetening if desired. I do have some jars of sediment set in the fridge to help with some minor topping up later on.
7. After sweetening, I plan to add sparkolloid and then bottle a week afterward, assuming clarity is achieved.


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## Scooter68 (Aug 8, 2016)

Well it all looks OK - as a matter of procedure (Others may see it differently) I move to glass carboys for the secondary stage of fermentation. Then I monitor it every day or every-other day until the SG reaches .995 or lower. (Most of my batches will go to .990) 
AT that point I crush one campden tablet per gallon - mix with distilled water and put that into my Carboy and wait 2 weeks for things to settle. 
Depending on the type fruit you may have a large amount of lees or next to none after fermentation is completed. One full gallon of lees for a 5 gallon batch does not seem extremely high. BUT the waiting period of 2 weeks gives the lees time to compact and settle more completely. Adding water is expected in most standard recipes you will find by folks like Jack Keller, EC Kraus and others. Minimizing that is great but I wouldn't worry about it. If you started with a high volume of fruit pulp, you are just going to have a lot of lees. That's why some folks like to juice the fruit before they put it into the fermentation bucket. They pre-separate the a lot of the pulp. One could make a case against that as it removes the opportunity for a lot of the fruit characteristics to be released into the wine. I'm not a scientist or chemist so that's above my knowledge level but... it does make some sense.

Since you removed the gross lees at the end of the primary fermentation as well as a lot of dead yeast cells you have reduced the chances of off tastes from the lees BUT not completely eliminated it. The newly expired yeast is going to be in the carboy after the campden tablet terminates any remaining fermentation but if you waited until 1.010 to transfer and remove the gross lees, there will be a lot less there to create issues.

Hopefully the senior folks with more experience can speak to how long to wait before the first racking after fermentation is completed.

Regarding this -What do the large volume wineries do after fermentation is completed? I suspect they have filters to remove lees from their must since the cost-benefit ration for them is far different than us as hobby vintners. I do know that with red wines they leave the skins in the must for a lot longer to extract more of the color and that contributes to more tannins in red wines.


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## floridacelt (Aug 9, 2016)

"7. After sweetening, I plan to add sparkolloid and then bottle a week afterward, assuming clarity is achieved."
I was told elsewhere that I should definitely NOT add clarifying agent after stabilizing as the clarifier would strip some of the K-sorbate out. That ship has sailed. Now, I was advised to add another dose of the K-sorbate after I clarify. Will adding another full dose of K-sorbate affect taste? Should I make it a partial dose?


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## Scooter68 (Aug 9, 2016)

Are you planning on bottling ASAP? Even with a strawberry wine I'd let it age a little 2-3 months minimum. As to the sparkaloid before Sorbate that's fine but after adding the sorbate I'd give it another week to allow be sure nothing precipitates out.

Age in-bulk (at least 2-3 months)
Sparkaloid
Sorbate 
Wait a week 
Filter (If needed)
Bottle


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## floridacelt (Aug 9, 2016)

Hey Scooter, thanks. Unfortunately for me, I've already added the sorbate, and now I hear I shouldn't have done that until after the sparkolloid. I can wait, but my question is whether I need to add another dose of sorbate after I use the sparkolloid? 
I hear the sparkolloid can undo the affects of the sorbate.


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## Scooter68 (Aug 10, 2016)

if you are going to age it just keep an eye on it. If it shows signs of starting to ferment again then you can step in.


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## drainsurgeon (Aug 10, 2016)

I'm questioning the sequence of the sorbate and clearing agents. I have made kits for years and you add K-meta, Sorbate, stir. Add F-pac, stir. Add Chitosan, stir. All in step 3 and it works. The only wine I've made from fruit so far (on batch 4) if from Dave's Dragon Blood recipe, and his procedure is the same except his instructions are to wait for clearing (or at least 1 week) before back sweetening. I'm not saying I'm right, just that it seems to work fine. Someone explain why you should wait for the Sorbate?


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## Scooter68 (Aug 10, 2016)

In a quick bit of research, before posting that suggested order of things, I never found anything stating that sparkaloid would stop Sorbate from working, but rather than ignore the suggestions... Additionally it's a different product than Chitosan so reactions could be different. 

I may also take negative comments on this but... I also don't see the benefit of using Bentonite during primary fermentation. It's supposed to drop a ton of material out of the must and during primary I want all those things interacting releasing all the flavor and character of the fruit. During the secondary stage of fermentation, yes, by that time the fruit should have given it's all and the clearing should begin. Truth be told I would prefer never to use fining agents if possible. When I read about all of them they each have potential side effects on the wine that might be undesirable such as stripping color, flavor etc. - I'd rather just let time work for me. 

For the time being, since time is not an issue, I would stick with keeping the Sparkaloid and Sorbate separate. After all, time and time again the guidance to new winemakers is consistently to be patient, wait for it, don't rush it - this isn't fast food city. 

Would be nice to hear some substantive comments as to why or how Sparkaloid interacts with or negates Sorbate.

(For grins there is a very extensive thread on Bentonite in Dragon's Blood with an interesting end - And it's not the first 'end' in that thread - spoiler - Initially Bentonite seemed to take away some things desired in the brew but after aging a while the changes that seemed negative went away - aging changed that . )


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## floridacelt (Aug 10, 2016)

Thanks for the replies, this has been immensely helpful!
In the interest of full disclosure, it was EC Kraus that advised sorbate after sparkolloid due to the sparkolloid compromising the sorbate's effectiveness. HOWEVER, they came back later with "[FONT=&quot]Actually, I did some more checking and you do not need to add any additional potassium sorbate because it permanently bonds with the wine."

So, my original plan seems to be fine (i.e. after sorbate, sweeten, and then clarify). I just wanted to follow up to prevent people from worrying about stripping the sorbate with clarifiers after I brought it up!
[/FONT]


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