I added the juice, water and skins to my Cellar Craft Showcase Malbec kit this afternoon, then pitched the yeast. About 6 hours later, I stirred vigourously, checked the gravity - and I'm BELOW 1000! I should be around 1.018 or so!
I know I accidentally added a little bit too much water, but no more than 1 L extra, and likely not more than 0.5 to 0.75 L. (Should be about 25L total but I'm closer to 26L so far as I can tell). I would not expect that much of a reduction in gravity from that amount of water.
The only other thing I can think of is I used a synthetic mesh bag for the skins this time, and the mesh is a lot tighter and less stretchy than the muslin mesh the kit comes with. So it is possible that the thicker juice that normally would come out of the skin bag is still inside it. But would it make that much of a difference? It's supposed to finish below 1000 by the time I secondary, not start out there.
This has not happened with previous batches. I'm shocked at that low reading and it's got me concerned. Has anyone else run into this?
I know I accidentally added a little bit too much water, but no more than 1 L extra, and likely not more than 0.5 to 0.75 L. (Should be about 25L total but I'm closer to 26L so far as I can tell). I would not expect that much of a reduction in gravity from that amount of water.
The only other thing I can think of is I used a synthetic mesh bag for the skins this time, and the mesh is a lot tighter and less stretchy than the muslin mesh the kit comes with. So it is possible that the thicker juice that normally would come out of the skin bag is still inside it. But would it make that much of a difference? It's supposed to finish below 1000 by the time I secondary, not start out there.
This has not happened with previous batches. I'm shocked at that low reading and it's got me concerned. Has anyone else run into this?
