Stopped Fermenting

Winemaking Talk - Winemaking Forum

Help Support Winemaking Talk - Winemaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Ernest T Bass

Senior Member
Joined
Sep 20, 2010
Messages
978
Reaction score
48
I am making some Pear wine, added no water, 3 gallons. Stopped fermenting at 1.016, checked for 2 days.
Copy of Log:
9-4-11 Pear - 35 lbs, sliced, capped, cored and frozen.
pH - 4.4
SpGr - 1.050
Yeast Nutrient - 5 tsp
Tannin - 1 tsp
Pectic Enzyme - 3 tsp
Acid Blend - 4 tsp

9-5-11
SpGr - 1.052
5 cups of sugar to get SpGr to 1.076 = (This is where I wanted it, I figured
low alcohol, and lots of flavor and
backsweeten to about 1.020)
Total must = 4 gallons
made starter with Red Star Premer Cuvee:
1 cup of warm water
1 tsp sugar
1 pinch of nutrient
After about 30 minutes, good head and added to must
9-6
SpGr - 1.040

9-7
SpGr - 1.015
Transferred to 4 gallon carboy w/ air lock

9-10
SpGr - 1.012
Lots of krud -- Racked to 3 gallon carboy w/ airlock

9-11 - (AM)
SpGr - 1.017
(PM) - 1.016

9-12
SpGr - 1.016

Tasted it this morning = Little flavor, little alcohol, and no sugar taste. I figure it converted all the sugar and the yeast is setting their wating on more sugar to convert to alcohol. I think I should use the wine caculator and have it caculate from 1.000 to 1.016 and add that much sugar (maybe a little more to get to 0.0990). Or shoul I wait a few more days and see what happens. If it doesn't change in a couple of days, what do you think of my idea?

Thanks for the help

Semper Fi
 
1.076 is a little low to start out - would be less than 10% ABV - you need at least 10% in order to help prevent spoliage - unless you plan on drinking this pretty quick.

What is the temp? You might need to up the temp to finish off the fermentation.

Did you add any nutrient or energizer?
 
ok something is not right on 9-10 you say the sg is 1.012 then on 9-11 you say it's went up to 1.017??? is this right if so some wasn't mixed right or something else went wrong.
 
Sirs, I wish I knew, the only thing I can figure is that I read the hydrometer wrong??????????

Semper Fi
 
I added 5 tsp of yeast nutrient.

Since last post, I added a little starter. 1/2 cup of warm water, a tsp of sugar and a pinch of nutrient and let it start working. Nothing happening?

Any suggestions ?

Semper Fi
 
I started a new batch of Pear Wine today. Same as above, except I have 55 pounds of sliced, stemmed and cored pears.
Since I made the first wine with a SpGr of 1.076, I am making this one with a SpGr of 1.090 and plan on blending the 1.076 batch into the 1.090 batch so it will finish fermenting. If you think this will work when should I start blending the 1.076 batch into the 1.090 batch, how much and how often ?
OR, do you think this will work?

Thanks for the help

Semper Fi
 
What is the temp right now? Have you been giving it some good stirs to get the O2 in there?
 
It's in the secondary under air/lock, so no stirring. The temperature right now is 79*. What do you think, should I start adding it to the second batch when it starts working ?

Thanks for the reply

Semper Fi
 
In the secondary already? SG being 1.016 - might have transferred it a bit to soon - left too much yeast behind which could be the reason it is not fermenting anymore.
 
Thanks Jon, I thought everyone had forgotten about me. Last nite I added about a quart of the stuck wine into some of the same kind that is fermenting good. The SpGr of the fermenting wine was 1.055, after I added the stuck to the good the good SpGr went to 1.050, but still working. This morning I made up a started ( about a half quart) and am adding a little of the stuck to it. I read where you can do this and after adding the stuck to it 3 or 4 times you can dump the quart of active into the stuck and it will take off. If that doesn't work I'm going to get some K1-V118 and enigizer and try that. Have you got any more or better ideas?

Thanks for the reply

Semper Fi
 
Went to the LBS this afternoon to get K1-V1118, they were out of. Got
K1-V1116. Made a started with 1 pint of warm water, a tsp of sugar, a little enigizer and some nutrient. I had about an inch of krud on the bottom. I got 3 ea 1 gallon jugs and put half of the starter in two of em. I always felt like I just ran out of sugar because it had no sugar taste and very little alcohol taste so I put a cup of sugar in the 3rd jug In about a hour it had about a 1 inch head on my starter and that is when I racked it, on top of the starter and sugar. I couldn't decide if I should put them under a air lock or leave em open. I put em under an air lock, (probably a mistake, because they started working as soon as I racked em). All three are bubbling about the same. I'll check the SpGr in the morning, hope they stay up all nite working!

Thanks for all the help

Semper Fi
 
Good deal!! It might be premature to put the airlock on it now. But see what it is like in the morning - you might be alright.
 
It's good you racked the wine before you added the yeast starter. Someone very recently added a very nice link about restarting stuck fermentations. It mentioned that yeast can get "lazy" if they are dumped on top of other yeast, especially if the dieing yeast already have released the enzyme, which cause the other dead yeast to start breaking down into food.

It does make sense to rack off all those dead yeast. Of course it can be a problem if a red wine gets suck early on and the wine still needs to be on the skins. In that case the racking should be handled on a case by case basis.

Fortunately, most fermentations get stuck at lower SG values, when it is not as big a problem racking off the skins of red wine.
 
I done everything I know, and some I don't know. My wine is still stuck !
This morning I put it in the grill-cubator and set the temp at 78*, I have a thermometer in the wine and it is controlling it between 76* and 80*, no action. What if I sorbate it and then back sweeten it, I think it has pretty high alcohol, but not a lot of pear flavor. What brought this question up was that I read on my hydrometer that between 1.000 and about 1.015 it says "finished ". ------------or should I pour it down the drain ?

any comments will be welcome

Semper Fi
 

Latest posts

Back
Top