Stuck fermentation, have to leave for 9 days

[GreenEnvy22]

Hi all,
I started a strawberry/rhubarb wine on Thursday. It started around 1.07 SG, and has been sitting at 1.046 for about 24 hours.
I have to travel on Tuesday and will be gone 9 days (I know poor planning).

What do you think I should do? Leave it as is and go? take out the fruit before I go and leave it in primary? rack to secondary?

My wife is preggo so can't work on it for me while I'm away (the smell will make her vomit).

Thoughts?

Thanks.

 

[pgentile]

Tough one. Question is why did it stall? But with all you got going on I probably would hit it with yeast energizer and hope for the best when I get back.

 

[NorCal]

Let it go. Wife has enough to think about. Chances are that it will complete. Worse case is you have a stuck or a little H2S to deal with.

 

[GreenEnvy22]

So I let it go while I was gone. When I got back it was lower, down around 1.048. With so little fermentation I'm worried about it oxydizing so racked it. Even after 24 hrs lots has settled out. I'll need to rack it again in a few days.

 

[Johnd]

Unless it’s chilly in your ferm area, that stuff should be done. Did you feed it nutrients at all?? Might be starving....

 

[GreenEnvy22]

Yep I had used some goferm and yeast energizer originally, then added some more nutrient a couple days in.

 

[NorCal]

If it were mine, I’d rack it too, knowing my yield is going to be a lot less, but hopefully something that doesn’t have H2S.

 

[GreenEnvy22]

OK so I think I figured out the problem, but I have no idea how it happened.

Took a sulphite reading, and it's over 100ppm (highest I can see on Titrets testers). No idea how that happened, but it explains the fermentation problems.
Looked at my notes, and I only added 1.45g of KMS,so that should have put me somewhere around 30-40ppm (6 gallons liquid).

So unless the rhubarb naturally has sulphites, or the strawberries or juice I added had them (neither had them listed on ingredients), I'm at a loss as to where they came from.
I'll do a bunch of rackings once the lees finish dropping out, then try restarting fermentation once free so2 is back to normal.

 

[Kayts]

I am having similar problem with the Strawberry wine..can see bubbles rising but never got a bubble build up on top only been going 60 hrs. and it is in a cool 67 area of basement. Is this normal for strawberry?