TemperanceOwl
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- Oct 30, 2014
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My fresh strawberry wine doesn't seem to want to stop being fizzy. Below are all the details of this strawberry journey…it's kind of long, but I wanted to provide all the clues I could up front, to see if you all have some ideas of what's going on. I'm afraid the sorbate didn't do its job and my wine has restarted fermentation after back-sweetening. What do you all think?
I started a fresh strawberry wine in early May, racked off gross lees in late May, left it alone, and racked again on September 5. At this step I combined a 6 gallon and a 1 gallon into a single 6 gallon, transferring by gravity.
On September 14 I added ascorbic acid and 750 ml of a sweetened F-pack, and the next day, Sept 15, I back sweetened with simple syrup, and added potassium sorbate (1/4 tsp/gal) and k-meta - on this step I added the chemicals to a fresh carboy and vacuum racked into it.
I planned to bottle last weekend, October 3, but when I tasted it, it was too tart, and was fizzy. I had assumed that the 4 months in the carboy would have naturally degassed it. The SG measured 1.024. I degassed then until my drill battery died, and it foamed and foamed. Afterwards, the SG measured 1.028 - I wondered if my simple syrup had not mixed in well, and I was stirring up sugar into the wine during degassing. I went ahead and added another 1.5 cups of simple syrup then, and mixed it in (but did not check the SG afterwards - duh).
Yesterday, October 10, I started to bottle, and the first bottle filled up with foam before it was 2/3 full of wine. I vacuum racked to a clean carboy and back twice (4 transfers). It was better, but still not completely still. This morning the SG measured 1.034. When I dumped the test sample back into the carboy it fizzed.
Does it sound like the fermentation has restarted, slowly, and I will just have to wait it out? Or is this normal for a fruit wine, somehow? I will check the SG again in 48 hours and see if it has dropped from today. I'm kind of bummed…I got all my bottles cleaned and sanitized yesterday, ready to go, but I sure don't want any strawberry bottle bombs!
Thanks for any guidance you can provide!
I started a fresh strawberry wine in early May, racked off gross lees in late May, left it alone, and racked again on September 5. At this step I combined a 6 gallon and a 1 gallon into a single 6 gallon, transferring by gravity.
On September 14 I added ascorbic acid and 750 ml of a sweetened F-pack, and the next day, Sept 15, I back sweetened with simple syrup, and added potassium sorbate (1/4 tsp/gal) and k-meta - on this step I added the chemicals to a fresh carboy and vacuum racked into it.
I planned to bottle last weekend, October 3, but when I tasted it, it was too tart, and was fizzy. I had assumed that the 4 months in the carboy would have naturally degassed it. The SG measured 1.024. I degassed then until my drill battery died, and it foamed and foamed. Afterwards, the SG measured 1.028 - I wondered if my simple syrup had not mixed in well, and I was stirring up sugar into the wine during degassing. I went ahead and added another 1.5 cups of simple syrup then, and mixed it in (but did not check the SG afterwards - duh).
Yesterday, October 10, I started to bottle, and the first bottle filled up with foam before it was 2/3 full of wine. I vacuum racked to a clean carboy and back twice (4 transfers). It was better, but still not completely still. This morning the SG measured 1.034. When I dumped the test sample back into the carboy it fizzed.
Does it sound like the fermentation has restarted, slowly, and I will just have to wait it out? Or is this normal for a fruit wine, somehow? I will check the SG again in 48 hours and see if it has dropped from today. I'm kind of bummed…I got all my bottles cleaned and sanitized yesterday, ready to go, but I sure don't want any strawberry bottle bombs!
Thanks for any guidance you can provide!