should you shake car iy during primary fermentation ?

[Granrey]

These pics are just seconds from each other and you can the big CO2 pocket and later how dissappears. On this case I was lucky enough to catch it when I was taking the first picture and looking at it right after lol

 

[Scooter68]

The problem with the "Big Cake" is that if there is fruit in that cake it's not staying wet and releasing the sugar and flavors it has. It's more likely to spoil there as well. I stir my wine must daily until a day or two before I expect to rack it to a carboy. That last day or two allows the heavier lees to fall out as much as possible. In this hobby seeing the side view might be interesting but it can also be counter productive if you leave a container like the one in the left photo above. that's a pretty thick layer and if that is your fruit, it needs to be pushed down into the must at least daily until fermentation is just about over.
Today I have some blackberries that have been floating the entire time of the ferment and getting pushed down each day. Today I will use a stainless steel strainer to scoop them out and press out any juice in them. Base on yesterdays SG reading of .998 the finish line is in sight so racking to a carboy is probably a day or two away. Yesterday things got a last light stir so that the bentonite on the bottom of the bucket wasn't disturbed

Certainly you can proceed how you want and your result may be great, but for the majority folks, a bucket is a better option in the variety of ways I and others have mentioned. I've only been doing this about 5 1/2 years but I have tried to listen to those on here with many years of experience. Sometimes ways can be improved and other times the reasons things are done a certain way proves to be safer, easier and result in a better quality wine with fewer risks. Note for one last example that your carboy on the right above have very little space for any foam so if you shake or agitate your wine, you have to have a solid cap on that container or foam is going to spew out. Your wide mouth bubbler is much better but again has less volume to hold in foam before it corrupts the liquid in an airlock. While capped with a non-breathing cover all the CO2 is staying trapped in you wine prolonging the degassing time. In a bucket the CO2 readily gasses out and when I move to a carboy my degassing time is almost always less than 1 month.

Here's hoping for your success in wine making.

 

[Granrey]

The problem with the "Big Cake" is that if there is fruit in that cake it's not staying wet and releasing the sugar and flavors it has. It's more likely to spoil there as well. I stir my wine must daily until a day or two before I expect to rack it to a carboy. That last day or two allows the heavier lees to fall out as much as possible. In this hobby seeing the side view might be interesting but it can also be counter productive if you leave a container like the one in the left photo above. that's a pretty thick layer and if that is your fruit, it needs to be pushed down into the must at least daily until fermentation is just about over.
Today I have some blackberries that have been floating the entire time of the ferment and getting pushed down each day. Today I will use a stainless steel strainer to scoop them out and press out any juice in them. Base on yesterdays SG reading of .998 the finish line is in sight so racking to a carboy is probably a day or two away. Yesterday things got a last light stir so that the bentonite on the bottom of the bucket wasn't disturbed

Certainly you can proceed how you want and your result may be great, but for the majority folks, a bucket is a better option in the variety of ways I and others have mentioned. I've only been doing this about 5 1/2 years but I have tried to listen to those on here with many years of experience. Sometimes ways can be improved and other times the reasons things are done a certain way proves to be safer, easier and result in a better quality wine with fewer risks. Note for one last example that your carboy on the right above have very little space for any foam so if you shake or agitate your wine, you have to have a solid cap on that container or foam is going to spew out. Your wide mouth bubbler is much better but again has less volume to hold in foam before it corrupts the liquid in an airlock. While capped with a non-breathing cover all the CO2 is staying trapped in you wine prolonging the degassing time. In a bucket the CO2 readily gasses out and when I move to a carboy my degassing time is almost always less than 1 month.

Here's hoping for your success in wine making.

Sorry I was not clear. After I know what to expect. Pretty much the glass is likely unnecessary. At some point I will be bored seeing the fermentation lol

I dont think (again I could be wrong as I'm new) in regards of over flow or cake. I dont need to shake grape juice. As there is no cake created. Maybe there are other reasons to shake which I'm unfamiliar.

In grape juice there is nothing to push down. Its more like "dump and go"

I only use juice. I do not use the actual fruits. Just the juice. Otherwise, I think that would be a bit of too much maintenence for me to shake and push down every now and then.

However, on pineapple and and soursop for sure and they only way I would have known, it would have been with with a glass container. I wish these juices had no cake but they do :-(

Definitely, after I finish testing the flavors on these fruits and see how much wine I consume per month or so. I'm quite confident Going forward I will keep only using the 3 gal fast fermenter and maybe a Fermzila like product that I'm planning to get.

I'm currently using EC-1118. When I find out which fruit wines I like. The next thing is to try those wines with different Yeasts. Apparently, they do indeed taste different. I don't think a different yeast might change my opinion on a fruit wine that I don't like with EC-1118 but again I could be wrong.

like this guy did with 8 different yeasts. Same juice.



Btw, just a suggestion but I think this forum should have sections dedicated to individual non-grape wines like Mango, Pineapple, etc. Who knows maybe is unnecessary.

 

[Scooter68]

1) There are WAY WAY too many non-grape wine varieties to have a forum for each type of fruit. Then what about say a Pineapple/Mango blended fruit wine? That's a wine that I have made and commented on in the appropriate forum.
2) We do have a non-grape wine forum: Country Fruit Winemaking

The problem we have is people not taking time to find the most appropriate places to post questions and comments. Just a quick browse on this forum and I found 6 posts that would have been better answered by folks focused on non-grape wines and that was in just 3 pages of this forum. On of the most common mistakes is asking about specific recipes when this site as a specific forum for...... Recipes

 

[winemaker81]

Stirring the wine during fermentation is necessary, as it introduces oxygen that the yeast needs to multiply. Stir daily, and if there is a cap, punch it down. Plus it stirs up the lees -- from what I've read, the fruit solids start to decompose when they settle, so keeping them stirred into suspension delays that. I'm not 100% sure that makes sense, but I'm stirring the wine anyway, so it's not correct, it doesn't make any difference.

In the upper left corner of this page, look for: Forums > Wine Making > Beginners Wine Making Forum

Click "Wine Making" to see the list of wine making forums. In that list, the forums devoted specifically to the wine making process include:

Beginners Wine Making Forum
General Wine Making Forum
Recipes
Wine Making from Grapes
Kit Winemaking
Country Fruit Winemaking
Meads
Skeeter Pee
Special Interest Wines

Plus more forums for yeast, barrels, containers, etc. Start reading the Country Fruit Winemaking forum, as well as the others, to pick up information beyond the beginner stage.