Plum Wine, Extremely Fast Fermentation Help!

[Chunkiemonkey]

With only one successful batch of home made wine under my belt there is still a lot I have to learn about this new interest of mine. With that said, I started my first batch of plum wine 6 days ago. I used Lalvin Kl-ll16 yeast and I followed my recipe. My starting SG was 1.09 the room temperature has remained between 65F and 70F. At day 5, yesterday, my SG was at 1.01. Fearful of an extremely dry wine I added another cup of sugar and brought the SG up to 1.03 I then racked into my secondary fermenter. In hindsight, if I didnt want an even dryer wine I probably shouldnt have added that extra cup of sugar. Anyway, my basic question is such a fast fermentation like this normal?

And I apologize if i have posted this same thread twice, I am still new to this and my internet dropped out on my first attempt to post.

 

[jtstar]

Sorry to tell you but that is not how you keep from getting a non dry wine all you have done is increase the alc level by adding sugar if you didn't stabilize first did you add the sugar directly into your wine or did you desolve it in hot water first

 

[wvbrewer]

Stabilize for atleast 2 weeks before adding sugar, a then wait 2 more to make sure fermentation does not start before bottling.

 

[pete1325]

Yep, ferment dry (.999 or less), wait a while, stabilize and back sweeten. The sorbate (stabilizer) will stop active yeast from fermenting any sugar left in the must.

 

[jdrum]

let your wine work untill dry, then stabilize with k-met and sorbate, wait 2 weeks and backsweeten to taste.
adding the cup of sugar will make your wine a little hot with the added alcohol so it may have to age a little longer to smooth out.
they say you don't need to degas most fruit wines, but i think it helps with clearing wines like plum and peach. i know it helped my pear and peach this year i would degass when you stsbilize.

jim

 

[Chunkiemonkey]

Is there any disadvantages to a fast fermentation like this? Logically it would seem a slower fermentation would have a better taste.

 

[cpfan]

Is there any disadvantages to a fast fermentation like this? Logically it would seem a slower fermentation would have a better taste.

I wouldn't have called this a fast fermentation. It isn't slow either. From 1.090 to 1.010 in 5 days seems pretty reasonable to me. I typically see 1.090 to 1.000 (or below) in 7 days.

I don't think a slower ferment results in a better taste. A slow ferment might result in too much time in the primary, possibly resulting in some oxidation.

BTW, specific gravity is usually quoted as 3 decimal places.

Steve

 

[UBB]

I have a plum going as well.

For comparison: I started mine with a S.G. of 1.088 on 11-10
On 11-18 I racked to secondary and the S.G. was 0.996