Need help with sour cherry wine

[yuu kanda]

Hi, My name is ryan and i am new to this forum. I am from Barbados. I am looking to make bajan cherry and passion friuit wine. My mother [from Guyana] grew up making natural yeast fermented wine but i wanted to see if using commercial yeast will taste. At the moment my only available yeast is bread yeast, [ i know right] some people said that it can be used but it will smell like bread. From the research I as doing on making wine from wine grapes, I saw a youtube video about different commercial wineries and the moderator was in the winery an was telling the host that he was smelling bread, they climbed a staircase to a huge stainless fermentor and she said it was the yeast. I am starting to babel.
Long story short- Can bread yeast be use in a pinch?
If not which yeast would you recommend?
Thank you for any you can provide.
Side note- I have grapes going in my backyard since 2017, I got 2 bearings in 2018. the first one harvested in late July which was only one bunch, the second in early December which bore 8 bunches. I have prune it back in late January and planted 2 more on the first of May 2019, the new vine are already about to bloom and should have them in early to mid December. I am babbling again sorry.

 

[tradowsk]

Hi Ryan, welcome to the forum!

Bread yeast can certainly be used for fermentation, many meadmakers use it all the time. Fleischman's is the most popular. But it has an alcohol tolerance of only 12% iirc, so I would only use it on white and fruit wines, not reds.

Otherwise, Lalvin EC1118 is the standard bulletproof yeast for winemaking

 

[tradowsk]

A separate thought: the best way to avoid any yeasty or otherwise unpleasant odors/tastes is to not leave the wine on the yeast for too long. I generally do my first racking when the specific gravity drops below 1.020. This gets the wine off all the dead yeast that can start to break down and give off odd flavors.

 

[yuu kanda]

Thank you very much for your help and advice. My mother says she will try it out. She is accustom to 3 month fruit wine. Her recipe is fruit (any) lots of sugar and just enough water to cover the fruits. Leave for about a week slightly covered, stir as needed, add water as needed along with more sugar. She say that it always seems to be a little bit on the sweet side. This is with out any measurement of brix or sg and the wine always taste great.

 

[tradowsk]

People were making wine for centuries before they even knew what yeast was, so I'm glad your mom found a method that works for her without worrying about all the science-y stuff.

I will say that if you want to make a higher quality or dry wine that can be aged for a while, you would need to be more methodical. But for a simple tasty drink for a warm day, no need to overcomplicate!

 

[yuu kanda]

Sorry for my late reply. Thanks again for your help. Is there anything besides potassium metasulfide ( I think I spelt that wrong ) that can be used to stop the fermentation from reoccurring afterwards? Here in Barbados we don't have access to that, is there any household or store bought items that can be used instead?

 

[tradowsk]

Sorry for my late reply. Thanks again for your help. Is there anything besides potassium metasulfide ( I think I spelt that wrong ) that can be used to stop the fermentation from reoccurring afterwards? Here in Barbados we don't have access to that, is there any household or store bought items that can be used instead?

So kmeta won't actually stop fermentation, we use it during aging and bottling to make sure no bacteria or other microorganisms don't start growing. Potassium sorbate (ksorbate) will stop the yeast from reproducing but won't halt an in-progress fermentation.

I'm not an expert on winemaking, but one safe way to stop fermentation from reoccurring is to add more alcohol. I have fortified some wines using 80 proof brandy to make a port. The higher ABV will kill off the yeast and most likely anything else in there. But I don't know if you want a high ABV fruit wine, might take over some of the more delicate flavors. Perhaps someone else on here has an idea?