90 days of fermentation

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garymc

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I have a red muscadine wine I started on 10-28-13. It's still forming bubbles in the carboy after 90 days. I don't recall any previous batches going this long. I started it at sg 1.120 and used 71b-1122. I pressed it on 11-1 at sg 1.042 back into a bucket. Two days later on 11-3, at sg 1.006 I transferred it to a carboy and topped it off with 750 ml of some red muscadine wine. On 12-17 I took the sg and it was 1.010. Either that top off wine was very sweet or one of my sg readings is off. Anyhow, there has been a ring of bubbles around the edge of the wine now for months. I have to look very closely with my reading glasses to see that new bubbles are constantly rising to the top.

Does this seem like a long fermentation?
 
Sometimes that happens. With your SG it still has sugar so I would guess it's still fermenting and it's not mlf. Have you added yeast nutrients? Perhaps it's slow because the yeast is limping along. And what is the temp? Warm it up and give it some good and see if it finishes for you more quickly
 
Pumpkinman..when i read your reply, I was like what the heck is cofermenting, I had never heard that.
Looked it up......found nothing.
Cofermenting is the new refermenting...LOL
 
Actually..I have one of the same.
Started a old time mustang grape last july....sugar, water, grapes.
in novemeber ..after racking i had about 1 1/2 gallons..
added that to two 1 gallon jugs, topped off with some concord grape wine.
it still has a ring of bubbles on it as well.
 
lol..co fermenting is when you start MLF while the wine is still actively fermenting in the alcoholic fermentation stage, I've talked to some experienced wine makers that started their MLF anywhere from 18 brix down to 5 brix.

Here is an interesting MLF story:
I started several batches of wine in the fall of 2012, as soon as the wine was fermented to dry, in this case .992, I started MLF (obviously a red wine) using VP41, after 2 months I tested all of my reds and the Chromatography test indicated that they had all completed MLF, at this point, I racked and stabilized the wine and set them to bulk age for 6 - 8 months in carboys, racking as needed until they were clear.
I followed by rotating these batches of wine into my barrels, the plan was to barrel age them for up to 6 months, I tasted a sample, and although the smell and flavor were great, it had a slight effervescence of sparkling wine, not as carbonated as a sparkling wine, but you knew it was present, I chalked it up to the wine needing to be degassed, and moved on to racking it to the barrel.
The norm for me is to taste a small sample of wine each time I have to top off the barrels to see how they are progressing, and to see if any off odors have developed. Over the course of a few months, every time I tasted the wine, that slight carbonation was still there, I figured that I was going to need to degass the hell out of this wine.
At one point, before I purchased the Vinemetrica SC-300, testing the SO2 levels was such a pain in the arse and highly inaccurate in my opinion that I must have either blatantly avoided testing the wine or forgot to, either way, on the next topping off, the wine smelled like rotten eggs...grrrrr.....I tried splash racking a few times before treating it with Reduless to correct the problem.
The wine seemed a bit stripped, it lacked the tannic characteristics that I look for in this wine, so I started adding tannin riche in small doses until it reached the level I liked.
Fast forward to last week, approx 15 months after starting the wine 13 months after the Chromatography test indicated that MLF was complete and the wine still had that damn light carbonation... I had to test 4 batches of wine and I figured, what the hell, test this one as well.....the test result showed that there was still a fairly good amount of Malic acid in this wine?!
So this wine has been slowly going through MLF for this long? Trust me, I made sure that I ran yet another Chromatography test on this wine two days later and it still showed the same results.... the only thing that I can think is that it has been in my cellar the whole time, which stays cool all season, it is odd, I've added meta several times over the course of the 15 or so months.

Moral of the story.... I have no idea, I thought that it would be interesting to let everyone know that I have a very persistent MLF...lol
 
I would say so...You think it will be mellow, when its done...
I just bought one of the Vinemetrica SC-300, but have not used it yet.
 
have you been taking any readings? and if so has it changed? And the wine you topped up with, did it have sorbate in it, I would assume it had k-meta?
 
The wine I used to top off was an extra gallon from the original batch, 6 gallons of wine, 5 gallon barrel at the time. Absolutely no sorbate, yep K-meta.
 
Assuming your questions were addressed to me, Julie, the topoff wine I used was what I call dregs wine. It was from 2012 batches when I was using ec-1118, some may have been sorbated, some portion not. The k-meta in the top off wine would have been more than 6 months ago and it had been in a half full 3-quart screw top jug for months. I had opened the jug several times to pour wine for drinking. All of the sg readings are in the original post. So, it is possible with the original sg of 1.120, the 71b just about reached its limit of alcohol tolerance and then some ec1118 was introduced and took over. Or it could be mlf. Temps are another possibility. It was taken to the basement 11-3 at 1.006 and had an ambient temp in the mid 60's for a month or so. During December and January, the temperature has probably been closer to 60 or lower. I'm going to rack today and will take temp and sg readings.

editing to add: The temperature was about 62 degrees. I racked it today and added K-meta. I tasted it. No off odors or taste. Not a bit sweet tasting. I guess it would serve as a good example of tasting like green wine. I'm not too concerned about getting it to ferment farther. I'd be happy if it quit now, since it started at 1.120. That would give me 16 plus percent alcohol. Since I used 71B, I thought maybe it would stop around 14%. It's also known for metabolizing malic acid. That brings up another question. Is there malic acid in muscadine grapes?
 
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