Gravity 1.100 -> 1.090 in three weeks, help!

[Discon]

I forgot to add a comment on the ascorbic acid. Do you have any idea why you added it? This stuff is an oxygen scavenger, good to protect your wine when its done, though not as effective as sulfites. When used in the must at the beginning it is probably sucking up a lot of the oxygen that your yeast need, get in there and stir the snot out of the a couple of times a day to get things going. WVMJ

Interesting, I did not know that about ascorbic acid. I see it's got lot of OH groups already, so it seems odd that it would capture oxygen. The recipe called for "acid blend", which we couldn't find. I believe it was added simply to make the wine taste more sour.

 

[Floandgary]

Interesting, I did not know that about ascorbic acid. I see it's got lot of OH groups already, so it seems odd that it would capture oxygen. The recipe called for "acid blend", which we couldn't find. I believe it was added simply to make the wine taste more sour.

As was mentioned, slightly cooler ferment temps can be beneficial, especially for fruit wines, to get more of the flavor at the expense of a longer ferment time. Trick is to make sure everything else is up to snuff to get fermentation going.

 

[montanaWineGuy]

Thanks for your reply! We made it air tight because the recipe we used said to do so.

I was there once, and now allow plenty of breathing. Recipes and procedures vary greatly, I've seen. Best practices, or what works best is for you to develop, but in the end they all do work, and eventually to satisfactory results.

 

[montanaWineGuy]

The recipe called for "acid blend", which we couldn't find. I believe it was added simply to make the wine taste more sour.

Some lemon juice will do what the Acid Blend does. And Amazon.com sells Acid Blend. Not sour, but can add a "pop" to the taste. I had an Apple wine that tasted like dish water. The acid blend corrected the taste and it was fully recovered and became a very nice sipping wine.

 

[Discon]

Thanks for the replies, folks=)

Small report:

I added about two teaspoons of nutrient to the batch on friday, and this morning there were bubbles in the airlock every seven seconds, and some foam had developed since saturday morning. While stirring, a LOT of CO2 escaped. More than I've seen before. I added a packet of Vintner's Harvest CL23 even though the original fermentation seems to be increasing, just to be safe.

We're considering stopping the fermentation somewhere around 1.010 gravity, in order to avoid a strong alcohol taste, and I think blueberry wine might be nice if not too dry. Would you do this, or would you rather backsweeten it?

 

[cmason1957]

You cannot just stop an active fermentation. The yeast will just laugh at you and point as it chugs its way to dryness. Let it go dry and backsweeten.

 

[Discon]

You cannot just stop an active fermentation. The yeast will just laugh at you and point as it chugs its way to dryness. Let it go dry and backsweeten.

Oh, I see. Thank you How silly of me.

 

[Discon]

Okay, so about a week later, and the SG is well on its way down, and is currently at 1.062. Thank you guys so much