Primary fermentation Temp Dropped!

Hi - I posted something like this awhile ago and sorry for sort of repeating myself. Yesterday it was 90 degrees outside and I keep my A/C on 76. The wine was holding at 80 as sometimes it creates it's own heat. The airlock was bubbling fast, but last night the temp in the house went down to 71 and so did the wine. The bubbling has slowed way down and for the next several days the night temps are going to be in the 40's and day temps only in the 60's. I don't want to use heat in May, so is there a way to keep the Vessel warm maybe with a heating pad or is that too intense? Some people say a lamp with a 100 watt light bulb about 1 foot away, but I am afraid of light with the wine even though this is a plastic vessel you can't see through. I wish I had a space heater! Please advise. I expect the wine temp to drop significantly over the next few nights
Thanks!

I wouldn't worry about it now, the big temperature swings can produce off-flavors, but not just a few degrees. A big jug of liquid takes a long time to change temperature.

A coat, I'm sure that you are not using them right now in the cold 60°! But all joking aside, like DoctorCAD said, big swings are bad, but its a large volume of fluid. I have mine the most central place in my home that is least likely to be affected my the swings in temps. And in the winter I place a blanket, towel or t-shirt on it, and huddle all the carboys close together.

you should be fine, take a reading every once in awhile to make sure it is still fermenting.

Thanks to all

Julie said:

you should be fine, take a reading every once in awhile to make sure it is still fermenting.

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I will answer the last 3 posts here. Last night against my will I did set the heat to come on at 70 degrees. I did put a blanket around the vessel and this morning the temp stayed at 72 and there is action in the airlock but only one bubble every 15 seconds or so and it was bubbling every 3 seconds yesterday.
This is the 6th day of primary fermentation and in this type of vessel is suggests 12 full days. If the bubbling stops, Do I just leave it be until the twelfth day, or test the SG again and move on to secondary fermentation. When I started the SG was 1.092 and yesterday it was at 1.000 - Not quite ready right? It is supposed to be 47 degrees tonight again and today,s temp isn't getting out of the 60's, but after that outside temps are going back to the 80's. Maybe fermentation will pick up. Please advise again. Not sure what to do here.
Thanks to all who responded!!!

You shouldn't be concern about bubbles coming out of the airlock. You need to depend on your hydrometer. I don't see where you are going to have any problems, the temps are fine, is the temp going to 47 degrees in the room you have your wine? I ferment in my basement and there has been quite a few times temp's were in the 50's in my basement and it continued to ferment to dry. At 1.000 you're wine is slowing down but will continue. It is coming to the end of it's fermentation.

Joe,

Fermentation will slow down as you approach 1.0 and below. Temps in the 70's at this point should be fine. I would advise (if not already done so) to check the calibration on your hydrometer (0 in distilled water at the posted calibration temp). This is just to confirm that you still have a little left.

If you prove your hydrometer, then I would not add any more heat, but I would add a small dose of yeast nutrient and a good stir just to aid full completion.

JohnT said:

Joe,

Fermentation will slow down as you approach 1.0 and below. Temps in the 70's at this point should be fine. I would advise (if not already done so) to check the calibration on your hydrometer (0 in distilled water at the posted calibration temp). This is just to confirm that you still have a little left.

If you prove your hydrometer, then I would not add any more heat, but I would add a small dose of yeast nutrient and a good stir just to aid full completion.

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Thanks to both you and Julie and all who have replied- First, the temp in the room isn't going to 47, it is the outside temp. The juice is still at 72 but dropped from 80. Now it is 80 outside and the temp in the house jumped to 75, but tonight it will drop down one more time until this "cold front" passes. As you can tell, I worry a lot. I did try to calibrate the Hydro and it is coming up 1.000 @ 60 degrees.I tested the SG yesterday and retested it now and it is at 0.994. Sounding good? I guess I'll wait a day or 2 more and see if this gets to 0.990 like my other wines did then I can proceed to secondary fermentation which is only 10 days in this vessel. I have been making wine for 30 years but not a lot with all this new equipment LOL!!! Thanks again!!!!

The hydrometer reading being off is nothing to worry about. You just need to account for that when taking your readings. Since yours is reading 0.006 lower than expected, you can add 0.006 to each reading you get with your hydrometer to get the actual value. So if your wine is reading 1.002, the actual gravity is 1.008.

Does that make sense?

wineinmd said:

The hydrometer reading being off is nothing to worry about. You just need to account for that when taking your readings. Since yours is reading 0.006 lower than expected, you can add 0.006 to each reading you get with your hydrometer to get the actual value. So if your wine is reading 1.002, the actual gravity is 1.008.

Does that make sense?

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Makes perfect sense, and I thank you!

JohnT said:

Joe,

Fermentation will slow down as you approach 1.0 and below. Temps in the 70's at this point should be fine. I would advise (if not already done so) to check the calibration on your hydrometer (0 in distilled water at the posted calibration temp). This is just to confirm that you still have a little left.

If you prove your hydrometer, then I would not add any more heat, but I would add a small dose of yeast nutrient and a good stir just to aid full completion.

Click to expand...

Hey JohnT - This is an update with one more question before I proceed.
This morning I tested the SG having been 7 days now in the primary. At first it looked like the SG was again at 0.994, but I decided to drop the wine thief a little further down into the wine because I felt I may not have had enough in there. I then got a reading of 0.990 ? Does it matter how much wine is in the thief, or do you need just enough to have the hydrometer float? I don't understand the 2 different reading?
Thanks once again!

In theory, just enough to float is all you need. Factors that may affect reading:

1) Did you stir the wine well before taking a sample?
2) Make sure the hydrometer is not sticking (dragging) against the side of the thief.
3) Did you do some degassing before taking a reading?

richmke said:

In theory, just enough to float is all you need. Factors that may affect reading:

1) Did you stir the wine well before taking a sample?
2) Make sure the hydrometer is not sticking (dragging) against the side of the thief.
3) Did you do some degassing before taking a reading?

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Since I use this FastFerment Vessel, they don't suggest stirring the wine.
The hydrometer COULD have been dragging against the side and when I reinserted the thief it may have broke free?

Again, with this FastFerment vessel, I only degas once and that is after 10 days of secondary fermentation, so maybe it was just sticking to the side...Anyway...It all looks good at this point and I was just wondering if there was a certain level of wine that needed to be in the thief. Thanks for the help!!!