DangerDave's Dragon Blood Wine

[wpt-me]

I believe the gentleman you are alluding to was Finnish.
Luc Lumeisenman ??


Bill

 

[jamesngalveston]

yes thats it.. thank you....

 

[jamesngalveston]

what ever happened to him, he seemed very passionate about his wine.

 

[wildvines]

My last recent batch took a few days to kick in. So think 7 days for me and was dry


Sent from my iPhone using Wine Making

 

[bkisel]

Thanks for the info. I'm just a little anxious because all my experience has been with kits and they all fermented faster then this DB and oft at lower temperatures than the pretty steady 80F +- for this DB batch.

I think that I'm going to pull the fruit out Wednesday even if I find the SG is a bit over 1.000. Give it one last good stir and lock it down. Check it on day 14.

Step 4 here I come!

SG dropped from 1.010 to 0.997 yesterday morning to this morning. Bucket is locked down, seeing airlock burping about every 4 seconds so seal is tight. Took about 15 minutes or so to see that first bubble.

Nylon bag was easier to clean than what I had anticipated. Did however have to use a fair amount of rinse water to get every piece of pulp flushed out.

Started Monday 02/24/2014

Day 1 (Monday) DB started SG 1.075
Day 2 (Tuesday) SG 1.074, Temp 80F +- / Pitched yeast
Day 5 (Friday) SG 1.040, Temp 80F +-
Day 7 (Sunday) SG 1.014, Temp 80F +-
Day 8 (Monday) SG 1.010, Temp 82F +-
Day 9 (Tuesday) SG 0.997, Temp 80F +- / Locked down / Bubble every ~4 seconds

 

[jamesngalveston]

looks like your right in the ball park, wont be long now, till you will be bottling.......

 

[dangerdave]

I appreciate the input everyone. Call it an experiment. I've made several of these large batches. The thing that shocked me was the amount of fermentation that had occurred with just one packet in the BRUTE. Now, I may be simplistic in my thinking---my wonderful wife would certainly agree, lol---but there it is.

My understanding of yeast (which may very well be erroneous) is that it functions much like bacteria. Just a few cells, given the right conditions, can turn into millions as the colony reproduces generation after generation. I figure that at on a certain scale, this theory would collapse. You wouldn't want to try to ferment a hundred gallons with a few grams of yeast. However, my hypothesis in this case is that the yeast, given enough nutrient and energizer, would multiple and thrive until it's food (sugar) is gone and the wine is dry. Like a colony of mice that grows exponentially until the food runs out, then dies off.

I certainly do not want to promote bad practices in wine making. I just wanted to see if it would work with less yeast up front. I may be completely wrong, but it appears to be going strong right now, with a thick, foamy cap, and active bubbling. I'm going to keep at it, keeping it warm, squeezing and stirring and measuring. I will keep those interested abreast.

On March 1st, I mixed the must, which had a SG 0f 1.075 before adding the fruit. I pitched the yeast on the morning of March 2nd. Today, on day two of fermentation, the SG is down to 1.060 at 78F. So far, it appears to be rolling right along. I'll keep a close eye on it. Stay tuned.

 

[Julie]

Yes please keep us posted. My thought would be that there would be too much sugar for one packet to eat up. Something like if you add too much sugar to your must, the yeast will only eat so much and you can end up with a sweet wine. Granted there is no guarantee to that and another thing would be if there would be off flavors due to stressing out the yeast.

So I am interested in how you do.

 

[bkisel]

I'll definitely stay tuned. This is the first thread I look for when coming to WMT. Of course being in the process of doing my first DB and non-kit wine keeps me particularly interested and involved.

 

[dangerdave]

Thank you, Julie. I appreciate your experience and your input into my humble little thread. I am still very capable of making mistakes, but I like to experiment. I appreciate you watching my backside. I won't tell Johnna...

<Please don't send me to the corner! It smells funny over there!>

 

[jamesngalveston]

Dave, I agree that input from the more expierenced like Julie and others that have so much wine bottled, is a most valuable tool in our wine making arsenal.They have by far have encountered more situations then I have seen, and they learned as they made mistakes, which surely helps us along, and they are happy to help when they can.
Hats off to all of them....
This person luc, i found out has written several books on wine making and is considered by jack kellar to be one of the best home wine makers, I just can not find the trials he did on using small amounts of yeast.

 

[reefman]

Here's the link to Luc volders' blog, you might have to search to find the yeast trials.
It has an English version below the Dutch version
http://www.wijnmaker.blogspot.com/

 

[jamesngalveston]

thanks reefman...some where he did something similar on yeast multiplication

 

[ckvchestnut]

I don't have much experience either obviously but I have been making 7 gals or so on one pkg of yeast. Ots
Not 18 gals though. Would be interesting to see what happens. I think it will happen just slower. My current batch is about 7 gals and I started on a tiny amount of wine & lees from a white wine that was in fermentation at 1.030. It is fermenting but not as quickly to dry as with a full fresh pkg of yeast. It's been 8 days an in down to 1.010 now.


Carolyn

 

[reefman]

here's the link to his index page, but many of the links are dead.

http://wijnmaker.weebly.com/english-start.html

 

[reefman]

Hmmmm, the links work from home. I guess my work place has them blocked....bummer!

 

[Rosa321]

so my current batch is JetBlue.... with nine pounds of blueberries. it's not quite dry and my specific gravity has not stabilized.
anyway, I'm noticing an odd smell. Maybe chemical? I did not notice this last time but I did triple berry and used less fruit.
I'm not getting the smell of yeast.... it could possibly the the smell of alcohol but it smells a little more like nail polish remover. has anyone made JetBlue or Dragons Blood and had an off smell? could this be normal or is my wine ruined?

thanks in advance for your help! This is only my second batch....

 

[dangerdave]

The acetone-like smell is likely from the alcohol. Acetone (used in nail polish remover) is usually derived by oxidation of isopropyl alcohol or by bacterial fermentation of carbohydrates. If you are concerned, rack it to a carboy to finish up under airlock. I have never had a batch smell like that.

 

[Rosa321]

The acetone-like smell is likely from the alcohol. Acetone (used in nail polish remover) is usually derived by oxidation of isopropyl alcohol or by bacterial fermentation of carbohydrates. If you are concerned, rack it to a carboy to finish up under airlock. I have never had a batch smell like that.

Thanks, Dave!
I just spent several minutes smelling it lol......I can't decide if it's a harsh alcohol smell or an acetone smell...... But it smells strong, and not like blueberries so much.

It's it ruined? If I rack to a carboy, and there is acetone, what happens then?

Did this happen because if was pushing on the lid and it wasn't on all the way??? I'm so sad if it's ruined. I'm always so careful and aseptic when I work with wine. :'(

 

[bkisel]

...
Did this happen because if was pushing on the lid and it wasn't on all the way??? ...

I'm guessing that if your wine is not yet dry it is still fermenting and producing at least some CO2 and that CO2 being heavier than air has provided protection even though the lid was not completely locked down. With my very first batch of wine, an RJS VdV Pinot Noir, I saw not a single bubble from the airlock start to finish of fermentation (14 days). Turned out the lid had a cut rubber ring with about one inch missing. All the gas was taking the path of least resistance, escaping through this gap, and not forcing its way up through the airlock. The wine was not hurt by this.