Blackberry wine too sweet--stuck?

[PostCarbon]

Hello. New at winemaking, although I've done a few kit wines. This is the first time I've tried from scratch and perhaps have screwed it up. I'm trying to keep copious notes. My wine seems to have stopped fermenting but still tastes sweet.

Started w/ about 40 lbs blackberries. Crushed them and separated out the seeds (Victorio strainer). Had about 5 gallons must and this started as 1.010.

Added enuf white sugar to bring it up to 1.085.

Killed the wild yeast, then added 1 packet champagne yeast EC-1118 a day later.

DIDN"T have it in a warm enuf place, as it seemed to not do much. Afraid I killed yeast, so I bought a warming belt, plus yeast nutrient (2-1/2 tsp.) and more yeast: K1-V1116.

10 days later, tested wine and it is at 1.20. Added more yeast EC-1118, which did NOTHING.

Any advice? Everything is still in my primary 6 gallon fermenter.

 

[Arne]

Make sure it is warm enough. You got it going and while it is fermenting strong, it makes its own heat. When it slows down, it is not producing as much heat and you have to keep the must warm. It is probably still going, but slowed way down. If you get it between 70 and 75 degrees F. bet it will finish out fairly quickly. If you wait a few days and check the s.g. again, bet it has gone down even if you just leave it alone. When it gets down to 1.010 or so, I would put it under airlock. You can just snap a lid with a airlock on your primary or rack it to secondary and airlock. Arne.

 

[Turock]

How much SO2 did you use? Were the berries fresh or frozen? If frozen, how long did you thaw them and did you protect them with SO2 and how much?

It's hard to know exactly why it's stuck. Scott Labs has a nice discertation on how to deal with stuck ferments in their Fermentation Handbook which you can access online. The important thing is to clean up the must and re-inoculate--Scott gives nice instructions on this but you should know how it got stuck in the first place so you can deal with it. Too much SO2 will make a ferment get stuck so that's why I asked how much you used.

 

[Dend78]

so lemme see if i got this right starting SG was 1.085, now SG is 1.200 correct? if so it sounds to me like your sugar wasnt fully dissolved when you checked initially.

 

[Deezil]

I'm guessing they started at 1.085 and it fermented down to 1.020 (a typo?)

Im really wondering how you only got 1.010 SG worth of sugar out of 40lbs of berries though - did you add a bunch of water? Most berries in my experience, have been somewhere around 1.040 starting

Sounds like you had a tolerable environment for yeast for atleast a short while, meaning your parameters cant be too far out of whack.. And now that its finished/stalled, i would atleast tranfer to carboys because its not pushing out co2 like it should to protect itself in a bucket, although i wouldnt fill carboys above the shoulder because if it does restart you're going to want some room for the cap to form without clogging and blowing your airlock sky-high

The oxygen mixed in during the racking process might help, although i wouldnt go too hard on it because too much oxygen wont be all consumed by the yeast should they restart - you dont want leftover oxygen, which would lead to oxidation of compounds within the wine..

With an SG of 1.020, i dont know if i'd add more nutrients/energizer for the same reason i wouldnt want to add to much oxygen, any microbes or other organisms could make use of the leftovers, spoiling the wine in an undrinkable manner the same as oxidation would

If its not warm, i'd warm it up.. 1118 and 1116 are pretty robust, tolerant yeasts, so they should bounce back (if anything would)

 

[Dend78]

I'm guessing they started at 1.085 and it fermented down to 1.020 (a typo?)

thats what i was thinking but I wanted to clarify

 

[PostCarbon]

Yes sorry, 1.2 is a typo. It should be 1.020

 

[mmadmikes1]

Unripe blackberries would have low sugar and HIGH acid. Now that would stick a fermentaions as well. Stop throwing yeast at the problem. Different strains to boot. Check PH, Check heat , unripe berries would also need nutrients for sure When you check PH,Heat, and add nutriunts, then make a yeast starter(there is a how to posted here) and have it going good. I would add 1/4 must to yeast starer then add another 1/4 of must when the first part is going. when that is going strong add the rest. have done this at least 10 time and it has always worked

 

[PostCarbon]

mmadmikes1: Thanks so much for this very practical advice. I feel like I have an idea now of what to do. So I think you're saying that the acid is killing the yeast? I will do this and then report back on how things progressed. Many thanks. PCP