Blackberry wine slow fermentation

[Markbenl]

This is my first go so excuse any stupid mistakes!

Had a primary fermentation of 6 days, then moved into a demijohn. However, I didn't have a muslin cloth to hand so used a looser knit cloth, resulting in a large amount of sediment in the demijohn.

Fermentation was going nicely (not measuring SG) by the look of the airlock, but was slightly panicked by the amount of sediment and decided to rack off to clear the worst of it after only 2 days.

Wine now looks a lot clearer, however the fermentation has slowed right down.

Have I messed up? Does anyone have a remedy to this?

 

[dralarms]

No wayou to tell without a reading

 

[Stressbaby]

This is pretty common in my experience. My feeling is that there are three things going on:

1. Racking seems to shock the yeast a bit
2. Reduction in the number of viable yeast
3. A bit of degassing occurs when you rack, so you are removing some CO2 from solution. The yeast that are left, once they recover, will start producing CO2 again but you won't see bubbles in the airlock until the wine gets resaturated with CO2.

So long as you don't have a problem (low nutrient, pH out of range, EtOH too high, SO2 too high) it will probably finish.

Paraphrasing something I read here a long time ago, but if you are uncertain about whether to do something to a wine, the wise course of action is to do nothing at all. A version of "don't just do something, stand there!"

 

[Cher]

After 8 or 9 days of fermentation going nicely, it is probably finished. The only way to know for sure is to measure the SG. That's the remedy I'd recommend. Also, put an airlock on it if you haven't already.

 

[Markbenl]

No wayou to tell without a reading

Is there any way of taking a meaningful reading now with no reference point from the beginning of fermentation?

This is pretty common in my experience. My feeling is that there are three things going on:

1. Racking seems to shock the yeast a bit
2. Reduction in the number of viable yeast
3. A bit of degassing occurs when you rack, so you are removing some CO2 from solution. The yeast that are left, once they recover, will start producing CO2 again but you won't see bubbles in the airlock until the wine gets resaturated with CO2.

So long as you don't have a problem (low nutrient, pH out of range, EtOH too high, SO2 too high) it will probably finish.

Paraphrasing something I read here a long time ago, but if you are uncertain about whether to do something to a wine, the wise course of action is to do nothing at all. A version of "don't just do something, stand there!"

Thanks for the tips! If nothing else happens after a few days could adding more yeast and yeast nutrient restart things maybe?

After 8 or 9 days of fermentation going nicely, it is probably finished. The only way to know for sure is to measure the SG. That's the remedy I'd recommend. Also, put an airlock on it if you haven't already.

Have done, thanks1

 

[Cher]

Even this far into fermentation, I think SG readings would still give you meaningful information. Without an initial reading you won't be able to calculate your final alcohol level, but you would know where you are in the fermentation. Whether or not the SG is continuing to drop over time will tell you if your fermentation is proceeding, or is done, or possibly stuck, which is the real concern.

Your post didn't say how you made this wine originally, but is it a recipe that you expected to ferment out to dry, in other words for the yeast to use up all the sugar? If so, your final SG should be something less than 1.00 and a hydrometer is a simple way to check that. If it is close to dry, you probably don't want to add more yeast nutrient, but if you are around 1.02 or above, that may be what it takes to get things moving again. In that case pitching a new yeast starter, maybe one with a high alcohol tolerance like EC1118, would add a little insurance.

Good luck!

 

[Stressbaby]

I agree with above, you need a reading to know for sure.