# Do / or when to stop fermentation



## Flame145 (Nov 18, 2010)

I have pumpkin wine in its first fermentation, and today SG was 1.060 I was going to do my first racking into a glass carboy with airlock, and let secondary fermentation continue. My question is this, do I stop fermentation before completely dry, or do I stop secondary fermentation by adding sulfite. So I keep more of the fruit flavor. Or let ferment dry, then back-sweeten later. Kinda of confused wheater I am supposed to let this ferment all the way through. Recipe didn't say. I guess what I was looking for is what is normally done. Thanks in advance


----------



## winemaker_3352 (Nov 18, 2010)

Let it finish fermentation until it is dry - less that 1.000. You can't stop an active fermentation. K-meta can stun it, you can chill it, but there is no guarantee that it won't start fermenting again. You would need to also sterile filter.

If you let ferment to dry - you can backsweeten and add f-pac after you stabilize it.


----------



## Flame145 (Nov 18, 2010)

winemaker_3352 said:


> Let it finish fermentation until it is dry - less that 1.000. You can't stop an active fermentation. K-meta can stun it, you can chill it, but there is no guarantee that it won't start fermenting again. You would need to also sterile filter.
> 
> If you let ferment to dry - you can backsweeten and add f-pac after you stabilize it.



I take it that this would be done just prior to bottling then


----------



## Wade E (Nov 18, 2010)

Correct, once its done fermenting verified by 3 sg's the same then you add sulfite and sorbate to your wine. Wait a few days and then you can sweeten it or sweeten it later. I choose to do it sooner and then let it clear cause even sweetening yoir win e with just sugar and water can cloud up your wine sometimes for some reason, (Imbalance?). Others sweeten later as it will seem sweeter oce your wine smoothes out so stay on the low end of your sweetness level for taste.


----------



## Flame145 (Nov 19, 2010)

Wade E said:


> Correct, once its done fermenting verified by 3 sg's the same then you add sulfite and sorbate to your wine. Wait a few days and then you can sweeten it or sweeten it later. I choose to do it sooner and then let it clear cause even sweetening yoir win e with just sugar and water can cloud up your wine sometimes for some reason, (Imbalance?). Others sweeten later as it will seem sweeter oce your wine smoothes out so stay on the low end of your sweetness level for taste.



So after SG for 3 consecutive days, add sorbate, then back sweetin. At this point What is the normal bulk aging period for fruit wine (more specifically pumpkin wine) or is there one? Do you normally bottle 2 to 3 weeks after sorbate


----------



## winemaker_3352 (Nov 19, 2010)

I would wait 6 months for fruit - it gives it time to clear.


----------



## Duster (Nov 21, 2010)

ok guys, I'm sure your all tired of these newbie questions that I keep throwing at you but I am in the same boat as Flame145 here, kinda. I have a pumpkin and a crabapple wine setting in the carboy that has had the same SG for about a week and a half now. I am assuming that at this point I should add campden tablets and potassium metabisulphite. After that I intended to add sparkolloid, an f-pack to the apple, and backsweeten before bottling however I am a little unsure of when all of this should take place. Any ideas?


----------



## Wade E (Nov 21, 2010)

Yes, once you have a stable sg you should use both sulfite and sorbate so that you cn sweeten the wine. You should wait a few days after doing this before sweetening just to let the sorbate do its thing. I would also sweeten before clarifying as that can cloud your wine back up something bad sometimes eve with just a simple syrup (I think its just some kind of chemical imbalance with the sugar water) I would then add the fining agent and give it a little more time then the directions state to let those lees compact some and also keep the carboy tilted during this time so all the lees fall to one side and a few helping bumps to that side will help it get deeper into that corner. Doing this will leave one side of the carboy pretty clean so that you can get the racking cane right down there with much less transfer of sediment when racking to clean vessel which you should always do before bottling so as not to disturb this say 8 bottles in and then you have a volume problem if you dont have a smaller vessel to let the rest of the wine rest again and clear all over. Hope this helps and please do worry about asking any question, its why we are here, if for some reason we dont answer it after about 8 hours bump the thread by posting there again but do give us some time as we do also have jobs, most of us at least. Ive seen a few people start bumping threads after 20 minutes and thats not giving us much time at all.


----------



## 1ChuckGauthier (Nov 21, 2010)

Duster, I see you asking about using Campden Tablets and Metobisulfate both..........Caution here, they do the same thing.........You want Campden Tablets and Potassium Sorbate


----------



## Duster (Nov 22, 2010)

Wow that was a near disaster stoped only by winemakingtalk.com Thanks Chuck, I surely would have screwed up there.

Wade, thanks for the advice. stabilize, f-pack & back sweeten, clarify, then bottle. It has only been about 60 days since I pitched the yeast, does it make scene that it would be dry already? For some reason I was thinking that it should set in carboys for around 6 months to a year.


----------



## joeswine (Nov 23, 2010)

*pumpkin wine mix*

 


might I ask how you balanced out the flavoring heavier crabapple or how do you make a pumpkin fpac?????????????


----------



## Duster (Nov 23, 2010)

for the crabapple i used 5 lbs of crab apples and 1 gallon of apple juice and 6 lbs of sugar. I was shooting for a 1 gallon batch however I had to add some watter to get the sg back down so it turned into a 2 gal batch.

the f-pack was more for the apple however I was thinking of back sweeting the pumpkin with brown sugar and Cinnamon


----------



## Duster (Nov 23, 2010)

Duster said:


> Wow that was a near disaster stoped only by winemakingtalk.com Thanks Chuck, I surely would have screwed up there.
> 
> Wade, thanks for the advice. stabilize, f-pack & back sweeten, clarify, then bottle. It has only been about 60 days since I pitched the yeast, does it make scene that it would be dry already? For some reason I was thinking that it should set in carboys for around 6 months to a year.



so is it possible that the wine could be dry after 60 days?


----------



## Wade E (Nov 23, 2010)

Easily, Lots of wines can be dry in 14 days but verify a stable sg with 3 consecutive sg readings that are the same over a few days. It should be at or below 1.000 but that all depends on what the starting sg was and what yeast you used cause if you had a very high starting sg and a yeast with a low abv tolerance it wouldnt be able to eat all the sugar thus dyeing off early.


----------



## joeswine (Nov 24, 2010)

*fpac*

buster what you may want to try is 1 cinammon stick and orange extract instead,I believe you'll love he finish product............


----------



## Duster (Nov 24, 2010)

joeswine said:


> Duster what you may want to try is 1 cinammon stick and orange extract instead,I believe you'll love the finish product



Interesting, I do like the sound of that, thanks for the input


----------



## joeswine (Nov 28, 2010)

*plm wine*

its very feastive and a great hoilday wine.try you'll like it


----------

