Getting the answer you want fast!

[Julie]

How many bubbles you get per minute really means nothing, sorry but that is how it is. You need to get a hydrometer, this will help you calculate your ABV and let you know if your wine has completed fermentation.

 

[sour_grapes]

im new to making wine i used grap juice to make my wine its been bubling over 60 bubling its been 15 days like this now it slowed down to about 3 bubles a min is this ok and how can i check the ac level now

You need to purchase a hydrometer (about $7 at your local home brewing store) and measure the specific gravity of your wine.

Let us know what that reading is. Also, let us know what your starting juice was -- was it just grape juice, or did you add sugar? What kind of grape juice was it?

 

[bfish19]

So I attempted to make a fruit punch wine using frozen minute made fruit punch sugar and water and used lalvin EC-1118. So after 5 days I'm pretty sure the yeast hasn't started to work and I'm wondering if I should chuck it out and start over?

 

[sour_grapes]

So I attempted to make a fruit punch wine using frozen minute made fruit punch sugar and water and used lalvin EC-1118. So after 5 days I'm pretty sure the yeast hasn't started to work and I'm wondering if I should chuck it out and start over?

I assume you do not have a hydrometer. See my post just above yours.

In the meantime, let me ask: How does your batch taste now? Is is sweet? Is is fizzy?

 

[bfish19]

I do have a hydrometer and my first reading was 1085 and remains the same

 

[cintipam]

There are several things that could be happening. The juice you bought could have sorbate or benzoate in it which which make it difficult if not impossible to ferment. or the must is not warm enough to get the yeasties growing. Or the yeast is bad, which sometimes happens even before you get it from bad treatment. If you think it is warm enough, at least 70, then I would do a yeast starter in order to get the colony growing and thriving before adding it to the must.

Another thing that could trip you up later, but prob not yet, is you used a punch. In my experience things labeled punch do not have much real fruit in them at all. so your yeast is not going to have a good food supply. You should be sure to add nutrient and maybe some energizer to the must once the yeast seems to have a foothold.

Pam in cinti

 

[bfish19]

There are several things that could be happening. The juice you bought could have sorbate or benzoate in it which which make it difficult if not impossible to ferment. or the must is not warm enough to get the yeasties growing. Or the yeast is bad, which sometimes happens even before you get it from bad treatment. If you think it is warm enough, at least 70, then I would do a yeast starter in order to get the colony growing and thriving before adding it to the must.

Another thing that could trip you up later, but prob not yet, is you used a punch. In my experience things labeled punch do not have much real fruit in them at all. so your yeast is not going to have a good food supply. You should be sure to add nutrient and maybe some energizer to the must once the yeast seems to have a foothold.

Pam in cinti

Thanks I was thinking I should have added some nutrient... I think it's time to start this experiment over

 

[Enologo]

Has anyone tried this product??

I'm planning on refinishing a press I aquired and some other wood that will come into contact with the wine and I've read that people have used EZ Do for that purpose but in looking around at other similiar products I came across a product called Watco's Butcher Block oil finish. In reading the reviews it seems it's more of a ureathane product than an oil finish and is said to be safe for contact with food. I was wondering if anyone had any knowledge or experience with this product.

 

[flapjack1439]

when to rack wine from primary fermentation
I started an Eclipse Stag Leap Merlot kit Last Sunday. It took a couple days before it started fermenting. Currently, 7 days later, it is bubbling away really well. The instructions say to rack after 7 days.

Even if the sg gets below 1.010, should I leave it until fermentation slows down?
The current sg is 1.009

 

[Tasha]

Hi I am new to wine making, I am at day six of my primary fermentation I am using jamoon fruit with red grape juice, I tasted the batch today an it has sour taste can I add additional sugar now ? Also I had a friend helping me and she added campden tablets one to the 5gallon, Can I add the additional 4 now? Also the SG was 1.060 at now it 1.010

 

[Val-the-Brew-Gal]

Hi I am new to wine making, I am at day six of my primary fermentation I am using jamoon fruit with red grape juice, I tasted the batch today an it has sour taste can I add additional sugar now ? Also I had a friend helping me and she added campden tablets one to the 5gallon, Can I add the additional 4 now? Also the SG was 1.060 at now it 1.010

If you add sugar now, you are only going to have more fermentation, not a sweeter end product. In my opinion, you should wait for it to finish fermenting, sorbate it, add potassium metabisulfite and then sweeten it to your liking. The sorbate and sulfites will keep fermentation from restarting and you can have your sweeter wine.

As for the campden tablet...NO, do not add it now! Campden tablets are potassium metabisulfite and it will keep your wine from finishing the fermentation process.

 

[Tasha]

Thank you for the advice.

 

[Sam]

Hello, just started my first batch of wine with my father, and I would like to make sure it goes well. It's an Amarone wine. At the beginning of primary fermentation it had a SG of 1.085, when we moved it to a carboy for secondary fermentation it had an SG of .998. It's being kept at a temp of 66-70 degrees.

The thing is, the instructions we followed said that during secondary fermentation, we should keep very little headspace in the carboy. We left maybe a couple of inches, but we found that when we did that, the wine actually very quickly overflowed the carboy - there seems to be a pulpy foam expanding at the top. We actually had to remove a bit to keep it from actively spilling over. When cleaning out the airlock, we actually noticed that there were large plumes of bubbles coming up from within the wine.

Is secondary fermentation supposed to be this active? I was under the impression that it would be much calmer than primary fermentation (which was very active for this wine as well.) We currently have a bit more headspace than I'd like, to make space for more foam. It still tastes good (and fairly strong) right now. Should I filter out the pulp at the top? Or is everything all good?

 

[sour_grapes]

when we moved it to a carboy for secondary fermentation it had an SG of .998. ...

Is secondary fermentation supposed to be this active? ... Should I filter out the pulp at the top? Or is everything all good?

I, too, would have thought you were in no danger of this problem at 0.998. It may just be lots of dissolved gas coming out due to agitation.

The pulpy part has me a little thrown. How did you transfer from primary to secondary? Did you transfer lots of the gross lees?

 

[Sam]

The kit we got came with a package of what looked like grape skins/crushed grapes that were added directly to the juice. During the primary fermentation, it seemed like the grape skins sort of separated from the rest of the material and floated to the top, but the crushed grape innards that the grape skins were mixed in with (about the consistency of jam) seemed to have turned into a pulpy texture that hung around the bottom, this got siphoned into the secondary fermenter with the liquid. I am guessing that between the agitation and the additional fermentation, this pulp mixed with the foam and floated to the top. Should we filter this stuff out? We don't have anything that came with our kit to filter that sort of thing, so I would appreciate recommendations for what to use, if you have any.

 

[sour_grapes]

First thing: next time, you can (but do not have to) put those grapeskins into a muslin or cheesecloth bag in the primary. This allows you to remove them easily before racking to secondary. This bag is included in many kits, but can be purchased separately at your local home brew store (LHBS).

Typically, we don't filter, as it were, but rather just rack from one vessel to another without sucking the unwanted parts into the siphon or racking cane. You could do this, but, unless you continue to have foamovers, I wouldn't do that at this stage.

Headspace is not toooo important at this stage, since your wine is (evidently) still giving off lots of CO2. I would just wait until your secondary is done, then rack, leaving this junk behind.

Oh, and welcome to WMT, too!

 

[Sam]

Thank you. How long would it be okay to keep that stuff in there, though? It was in there for ten days during primary fermentation, and the instructions I follow say we should take another ten days for secondary. Would it be okay for that to be in there for that long, if the intent was for it all to be removed when transferring from primary to secondary?

Also, I have a feeling we're eventually going to need to filter somehow, since when we siphoned from the primary to the secondary, it swept up a lot of this pulpy stuff (though the majority of the grapeskins were removed.) Is there anything I could use for this?

 

[Sam]

I guess I should update: the wine settled overnight, and the pulpy foam disappeared. However, there were apparently more grapeskins sucked up by the siphon than I had thought, because there is now a layer of them on the top of the wine. Much less than we had during primary fermentation, but still, they are there.

Another odd thing I ought to mention. I brew beer as well, and I was expecting to see a sort of fine sediment on the bottom of the wine after fermentation. However, it seems that the dead yeast cells never really quite settled to the bottom - the bottom of the wine was just this very cloudy, pulpy mixture of grape skins that had remained at the bottom and other debris. Is this something that I should worry about? Could I expect the sediment to settle more now that we've removed much of the grape skins that had been floating around at the bottom?

 

[sour_grapes]

Yes, I think you will be fine to leave that stuff there for the duration of secondary. (I should say that I am not all that experienced myself, but this is my best guess.)

As I understand it, the danger of leaving the wine on copious amounts of gross lees is that some of the dead yeast may begin to break down and impart "off flavors" to the wine. However, the danger is proportional to the amount of stuff sitting on the bottom. If you racked as you said, you probably don't have tons of this stuff to worry about. I would say that if, in the coming days, you see more than an inch of sediment on the bottom of your carboy, then you should rack to get rid of it. (I would not worry about the floaty stuff.)

By the way, what kind (brand, etc?) of wine kit is this?

 

[Sam]

It is Cellar Craft Showcase, Amarone style.

I guess I'm a bit confused. Gross lees are the leftover bits of fruit that sink to the bottom of the wine, right?

In our case, there was never really a solid layer of that - just a sort of pulpy liquid towards the bottom, a lot of which was removed when we racked from primary to secondary (though I'm sure some of it got in.) What we do have is a layer of grape skins that float to the top. Would those also be considered gross lees?