Nathan

[nathanwdavis]

I started a 6.5 gal carboy of merlot, using a couple of large cans of merlot concentrate. I followed the directions exactly as listed on the can, and added sugar as directed. It tested at 1.09 at the start, and has bubbled along for a little over 2 weeks. Yesterday, I decided to add 2 lbs of sugar to the batch to boost the alcohol content. Instead of boosting the alcohol level, however, it stopped the fermetation process. That is, there are no more bubbles. The batch tests at 1.00.

Since I dislike sweet wine, I am wondering if I can somehow restart the fermentation process to get a dryer batch if wine. For instance, if I dilute the mixture by adding one more can of merlot concentrate but avoid adding any sugar, can I get it to restart fermentation and produce a dryer wine?

 

[Wade E]

What yeast did you use? Each wine yeast has its own alc tolerance. Most of them should take this to dry though and it may just need a little time to get going again. what is the temp of this?

 

[nathanwdavis]

I used PREMIER CUVEE for the yeast. The room stays at a constant 70 degrees.

 

[jtstar]

How did you add the sugar also did you desolve it in boiled juice or poured it straight into the fermemting wine

 

[nathanwdavis]

I siphoned out about a pint of must and slowly poured the sugar into the carboy. It produced some bubbles, but I did it slowly enough to keep it from bubbling out of the carboy.

After seeing your reply above, I swished the carboy around and found that it still is producing bubbles--not a lot of them but it still is producing some. Swishing the carboy around produced enough bubbles to make the airlock start bubbling.

So maybe it is still reacting like you mentioned above and will slowly finish out. Appearently, it isn't stuck like I thought. Anyway, I've learned to leave well enough alone from now on.

 

[Wade E]

Next time try adding more sugar in the beginning or when the fermentation is going strong as this is when the yeast is at its best. So you understand there are 2 fermentations that happen, Aerobic which is the first part of fermentation which takes place fro starting off to say around an sg of about 1.040 - 1.030 and thats when the yeast starts to switch over from mass producing more yeast cells to concentrating on just eating up its food (sugar) and turning it into abv. Yes its been doing this all along also but at this point it has to focus more to get the job done. So adding sugar to the mix near the end where the remaining yeast cells still in there may be at their last stages of life. They still do reproduce the whole time but just to a much lesser extent. That second fermentation that I spoke of is called Anaerobic fermentation. By the way, the yeast that you used is a nice strong yeast and should nit have a problem with the amount of sugar you added if it were added earlier, it most likely ill finish to dry but fermentation is much slower when it gets down to this point. Just keep an eye with your hydrometer and you should see it going down slowly.

 

[buddy]

Adding two pounds of sugar to your wine should have increased the SG. well above 1.000.
I think that the sugar was not dissolved in the wine giving you a lower SG.
The yeast at the bottom of the carboy would have been overwhelmed by such a high concentration of sugar and the yeast suspended in the wine did not have access to this added sugar.
By swirling your carboy you were able to distribute the sugar throughout the wine.
I'll bet that if you took another reading with your hydrometer, the SG. would be higher.