5gal fermintation stalled?

[proksy]

This is my second round of wine making but I now have a 5gal carboy and tools/instruments. The ingredients of this wine did call for a fair amount of cranberries and I did learn from Wade that cranberries and blueberries can hold back fermintation. So I got some yeast nutrient from the store when I purchased my yeast and added that in. Everything was going strong, fermening stronger than any of my 1gal batches, but I did use L.1118 yeast in this 5gal batch and not bread yeast So, after 10 days total, bubbling in my airlock has come to a crawl. It has gone from 1-2 bubbles per second to 1-2 per hour maybe slower...This comes three days or so after replacing an airlock because a tinny bit of wine got up into the bubbler. When I replaced the airlock I decided to give the must a stir as well so I sanitized my syphon tube(I use an iodine based no rinse sanitizer), put the tube into the carboy and stirred for about 30s while the cap and airlock soaked in the sanitizer. Removed the tube, reinstalled the cap and airlock, filled with whiskey and done. After 30min the must returned to normal fermination but in the days after that it has slowed to a crawl.

Am I supposed to stir the must, ever? Is the long winded question here..I am going to make my second S.G. measurement either tonight or tomorrow night and see where I'm at. Who knows maybe it's done

 

[Wade E]

So far everything is going as planned and you are most likely done at 10 days or damn near it! Cherries are not one of the fruits that will stall a fermentation though, cranberries and blueberries are the ones that naturally produce benzoate but adding nutrient and or energizer are always recommended as most fruits other than grapes are usually deficient in the nutrient area and even grapes can benefit from a dose of nutrient. Im betting your sg is at or below 1.000

 

[proksy]

yep I totally mistyped that, there arn't any cherries in this recipe, cranberries there are but not really a whole lot. I just checked the S.G. and 1.000 almost on the dot at 70F(Nice call Wade). My starting S.G. was 1.080 at 67F. I need to find the calculator on here and put pencil to paper but I think this might some strong stuff.

 

[proksy]

I have racked this baby and took another S.G. reading and it read 0.990. When I was taking measurements I noticed that my hydrometer was sticking to the side of the cylinder. I need to be careful in the future and pay attention to that, reason being I was looking at my recipe and I'll bet my starting S.G. was a tad higher than 1.080 and probably closer to 1.090 or 1.100 with all the sugar I put in but it's only my second attempt and I am very, very pleased with the taste and smell of this wine right out of fermentation. I let some people try it and they liked it as well. Looks like another success just in larger quantities Thanks for the help and advice!