Stalling Cranberry, temp OK, pH OK...

[Grape Expectations]

I started cranberry off 18 days ago and it's been slow the whole time.

I accidentally started it off with a high sg (1.135) and initially I assumed that was why it wasn't getting going, but on days 2/3/4/5 it was fizzing away quite well, compared to how it is now after 18 days. It's at around 12% ABV and the bubbling has slowed down a lot. From numerous hydrometer tests I'd estimate it's gaining maybe 0.2% or 0.3% per day in ABV.

Earlier on, around days 8 to 10, I thought maybe the pH is around 2.5 after reading that's what cranberry juice can be, but it's actually at a good level of 3.4 pH according to my test strips that are made for measuring between 2.8 to 4.4 pH.

The temp has been between 20°C and 24°C the whole time.

I have fermented orange wine to dry in 5 days using all the same yeast, nutrient, pectolase, bentonite, same place, temp etc. It's definitely this juice!

I have no idea why it's going this slowly, maybe the antioxidants? Tannins in cranberry? Maybe it does have potassium sorbate in and the ingredients label just forgot to mention it? It's Ocean Spray Classic, but it has a German label and was 1 month past the date (I bought 16L in bulk).

Will this speed up if I add another 0.5 tsp of yeast and 0.5 tsp of nutrient to it?

Would that be wasting yeast by trying that?

It would be OK if it was going as fast as it was in the initial stages because at least then it seemed to be gaining about 1% ABV per day, but at this rate it's going to be another month before it gets to the levels I am trying to get to (18% or maybe 19% at a push). The orange wine managed that in 5 days flat (1.126 to 0.991 SG).

Fiddlesticks

 

[BigDaveK]

I looked at the ingredients for the classic and it mentions carrot juice. Not a bad thing but that would explain why the pH isn't much much lower.

High sugar content may be a suspect. Yeast are truly amazing at adapting to various stress conditions. With high sugar concentrations they tend to move away from glycolosis and produce more glycerol. The ATP produced by glycolosis is very important for a number of cellular functions.

More yeast and a bit of nutrient is an option unless someone has another idea.

For comparison-
I currently have a 3-gallon cranberry in primary. I used frozen berries and organic unsweetened juice. I used some potato water (which has a pH close to 5.0) to get my pH to about 2.8. I started at 1.100 and after 4 days I'm at 1.044, temp at 21C. Not a fast ferment but chugging along nicely. Oh, and it tastes wonderful.

Good luck!

 

[Raptor99]

I found this helpful overview from U. C. Davis on the nutrient requirements during fermentation http://www.cellarmastersla.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/BISSION-NUTRIENTS-5-18-14.pdf

They recommend adding the nutrients in stages, with the final addition at mid-fermentation. Once the ABV is at a higher level, it is very difficult for the yeast to utilize nutrients. So adding more nutrients at that point will probably not help.

One of the members who makes high ABV wine can probably provide some insight here.

 

[Grape Expectations]

Cheers folks. I just threw in 0.5 tsp of yeast and nutrient and will see what's what in a few days.

It's a shame the SG was so high, because I could just salvage it now and have a lower ABV, after all it's around 12% which is OK, but it's just too sweet to drink, at 1.048 SG. I don't know why because that's exactly the SG my orange starts at before adding sugar, maybe it's in my mind or I'm just accustomed to wine not tasting this sweet.

 

[Raptor99]

If you add some pure cranberry juice, without any added sugar, that would lower the ABV while maintaining the cranberry flavor. With a lower ABV, the fermentation might restart.

If you know the SG of your pure cranberry juice, you could calculate how much to add so that when the remaining sugar ferments you would end up with an ABV of around 12%.

 

[BigDaveK]

If you add some pure cranberry juice, without any added sugar, that would lower the ABV while maintaining the cranberry flavor. With a lower ABV, the fermentation might restart.

If you know the SG of your pure cranberry juice, you could calculate how much to add so that when the remaining sugar ferments you would end up with an ABV of around 12%.

A couple months ago I started testing everything, mostly out of curiosity. My organic unsweetened cranberry juice came in a tad over 1.030 which means about 85 gr/l of sugar. BUT according to the label it has about 32 g/l, meaning closer to 1.010. It didn't taste sweet so I believe the label. There's other things in there affecting density.

 

[BigDaveK]

Cheers folks. I just threw in 0.5 tsp of yeast and nutrient and will see what's what in a few days.

It's a shame the SG was so high, because I could just salvage it now and have a lower ABV, after all it's around 12% which is OK, but it's just too sweet to drink, at 1.048 SG. I don't know why because that's exactly the SG my orange starts at before adding sugar, maybe it's in my mind or I'm just accustomed to wine not tasting this sweet.

Wine is kind of funny. Depending on the amount each of acid, alcohol, and sugar your perception of any of those will change.

 

[Grape Expectations]

A couple months ago I started testing everything, mostly out of curiosity. My organic unsweetened cranberry juice came in a tad over 1.030 which means about 85 gr/l of sugar. BUT according to the label it has about 32 g/l, meaning closer to 1.010. It didn't taste sweet so I believe the label. There's other things in there affecting density.

Similar to my findings. The label says 94g/L but it comes out at 1.048 SG which is more like 130g/L on my S1011 hydrometer and 150g/L on the S1310 hydrometer.

 

[winemaker81]

It's a shame the SG was so high, because I could just salvage it now and have a lower ABV, after all it's around 12% which is OK, but it's just too sweet to drink, at 1.048 SG. I don't know why because that's exactly the SG my orange starts at before adding sugar, maybe it's in my mind or I'm just accustomed to wine not tasting this sweet.

It's the acid level. Acid and sugar balance each other, so a high acid wine with a correspondingly high residual sugar will taste off-dry.

 

[BigDaveK]

Similar to my findings. The label says 94g/L but it comes out at 1.048 SG which is more like 130g/L on my S1011 hydrometer and 150g/L on the S1310 hydrometer.

Thanks for that. I'm glad I'm not crazy, well, as far as this goes at least.
The past couple months I've been researching my ingredients, tweaking the amount of sugar to add. Many are close, some are way off.

 

[Raptor99]

Even though other things dissolved in the juice/wine affect the SG, as long as they stay in solution, we can use the change in SG to estimate the final ABV. Of course if some of it settles out during fermentation all bets are off. Either way, it makes it a difficult to estimate ABV before fermentation.

The numbers we come up with using methods available to home winemakers are all ball park estimates. It is good to remember that. Precise numbers would require an organic chemistry lab.

 

[Grape Expectations]

When I test the orange I do (that ferments like a madman) that is also 1.048 SG on both hydrometers, so it averages out at around 140g/L. That orange juice label says 16g/150ml which is 107g/L so again that's way off compared to the two hydrometers. Maybe they are only listing the sugar they add to it.

 

[BigDaveK]

@Raptor99 I'd be happy with a ballpark number but with some country wines I think the parking lot of the ballpark is the best we can do.
My ground cherry juice came in at 1.060 and went down a little over night prior to adding everything else. I found that ground cherries don't have sugar but sugar alcohols. I decided to ignore the SG and calculated the sugar to get to 1.090. With 71B yeast and only using the change in SG I'm supposedly around 20% ABV right now. I know it's not true, alcohol isn't noticeable, but it tastes great.
While the lack of good numbers can be frustrating I'm not going to lose sleep over it. (Though it still bugs me!) As long as it tastes good I'm happy.

 

[Grape Expectations]

After three weeks fermenting it's still only managed to drop to 1.042 SG (12.4% ABV).

It has about the same sugar levels as Coca-Cola. It's too sweet for me but I'm just going to bottle it and have done with it. I worked out it's got about 6.4 teaspoons of sugar in a 230ml serving (that size serving because at 12.4% ABV that equates to a pint at 5%).

I have got 4 x 5L demijohns to bottle of this stuff so I think I'll end up making some more orange wine using the same space and then, mix it half and half, solving 2 problems at once - the sweetness of the cranberry wine will be reduced while also boosting it's ABV.

One thing is, this cranberry wine is nice! If I ignore the sweetness, it's actually not got much acidity to it like I thought it might have. The amount of babysitting needed isn't worth it though. I reckon this would probably take 2 months to ferment to anything like a tolerable sweetness and even then it might be too sweet.

 

[Rice_Guy]

acid taste (grams of acid) combined with tannin are balanced against sugar and alcohol which are both sweet, the grams/liter of acid is still there

One thing is, this cranberry wine is nice! If I ignore the sweetness, it's actually not got much acidity to it like I thought it might have. The amount of babysitting needed isn't worth it though. I reckon this would probably take 2 months to ferment to anything like a tolerable sweetness and even then it might be too sweet.