Need a little help here

[CPitre]

Very new to making wine, done a lot of reading but still learning every day. My first batch is a watermelon wine. Initial SG was 1.083, which as I understand it, is acceptable. Spent 5 days in primary, moved to secondary for 21 days. Good fermentation in the beginning and slowly tapered off over the course of 3 weeks as I expected it would. But, I racked to a clean jug last night and measured the SG at 1.020! Now, I am hoping to make a sweet-ish wine as the wife only likes wines that are borderline jammy in my opinion, but I was expecting to accomplish this by back sweetening. I'll post the recipe below and maybe someone can tell me if this is just normal, or did it get stuck? If stuck, what action should I take to correct it? One issue I had right from the get go was PH, the recipe recommends 3.0-3.5, mine started at 2.8. I have not yet taken another measurement. I should add that I'm not concerned about alcohol content as long as there's enough to preserve the wine for a year or two as this recipe recommends bottle aging for at least 6 months. Recipe below for reference. Thanks all!

2 quarts watermelon juice (contains some grape and apple)
1.5lbs sugar
2 quarts water
1 tsp nutrient
2.5 tsp acid blend
1/8 tsp tannin
1 campden tablet
and I used Red Star Champagne yeast

 

[Tnuscan]

What was your fermentation temperature. What is your pH now?

Check your hydrometer for accuracy.??

 

[CPitre]

Fermentation was completed at a steady 72 degrees. I'll have to check the PH again tonight. Hydrometer seems spot on, 1.000 on the button in water.

*I corrected my original post, final SG 1.020, not 1.2!

 

[Johnd]

If your fermentation has stopped at 1.020, it has not fermented dry, which would be somewhere in the .990 - .998 range. I would personally try to get it to ferment all of the way down before moving on. It sounds like it is stuck. As it stands now, the SG drop from 1.083 to 1.020 has produced a wine with roughly 8.5% alcohol, low by my standards. If you got it down to .995, you'd be at about 12% ABV.

If you stop now and accept 8.5% ABV, backsweetening may not be necessary, as you already have sugar left in the wine, so if that is your choice, taste before you add any more sugar to it.

Your temps for fermentation are fine, and I can't say why fermentation stopped, but the things I'd check would be Ph to make sure it's in an acceptable range for yeast, and the amount and type of nutrients you used. To kick it back up, try making a starter with EC - 1118 and the proper amount of a nutrient like Fermaid K, and keep make sure your Ph is 3.3 - 3.8ish.

Let us know how you decide to go and what your numbers look like..........

 

[CPitre]

I think to be cautious I will restart fermentation. I'll get to work on a starter tonight after checking the PH level. I should have adjusted it right from the begining but I'm still not fully stocked for supplies yet. Anyhow, I'd rather back sweeten a finished wine than take a chance on where I am now. If the alcohol had made it to at least 10% I might have gone another route. Thanks for the advice. I'll get the fermentation going again, unfortunately I have to be away for about 10 days after that but I'll post my findings when I return!

 

[Johnd]

I think to be cautious I will restart fermentation. I'll get to work on a starter tonight after checking the PH level. I should have adjusted it right from the begining but I'm still not fully stocked for supplies yet. Anyhow, I'd rather back sweeten a finished wine than take a chance on where I am now. If the alcohol had made it to at least 10% I might have gone another route. Thanks for the advice. I'll get the fermentation going again, unfortunately I have to be away for about 10 days after that but I'll post my findings when I return!

I believe that's a good course of action. I've not worked with watermelon, but I'm going to guess that your Ph is going to be on the high side. Your yeast will fare better and your wine will be more stable if you get it into the desirable range.

 

[NorCal]

My thinking: yeast die when the run out of food or the environment is toxic. It can be alcohol, nutrient, pH temperature or most likely a combination of factors. I've had success getting must to go dry by starting a separate ferment with some of the balanced juice, sugar, nutrient then step feed the stuck ferment in.

 

[WineYooper]

Remember to stir the must as it is fermenting, needs to release co2 and feed yeast oxygen.

 

[Julie]

Did you check the sg prior to racking to the carboy. You shouldn't just rack on a specific day, you need to rack based on what the sg was. Sg should be 1.01 before racking to a carboy.

I rack this back to a primary and get a yeast starter going. Watermelon is a very tender juice, it spoils very quickly.