Beginners problems 101 (add your tips and tricks)

[DarrenUK]

I thought I might start a thread of basic beginners problems and solutions since I see the same issue's again and again.
The big one is....

"It's been a day and nothing is happening"

So before you do anything else, in the bath or sink run some warm water and give your fermentation bucket a shallow bath for 10 minutes to bring the temperature up a bit.
9 times out of 10 it's colder than you think it is. Especially as a beginner your equipment is limited and the temperature stickers you get with most kits are OK but not very reliabile.
You should see a noticeable differents after the 10 minutes. Once the yeast is awake it should produce a little heat to keep up the fermentation and temperature up. Easy.

If your still having problems then definitely make a post and get advice. There will be some detective work required to find the issue but it's unlikely you have fallen that far from the path on your first brew.

 

[BernardSmith]

A useful post but I'd like to offer a friendly amendment:
I wonder if the expectation that one cannot see any active fermentation after a single day is itself the problem.
First, it can take yeast two or three days (sometimes) to come out of the lag phase;
Secondly, what is this novice wine maker looking at? Bubbles may not be visible if there are poor seals in the fermenter. A better indication may be to check whether there is any drop in the gravity. But again, after 24 hours being able to register a drop in gravity may suggest too high a temperature rather than one that is too low.
Sure there are times when nothing appears to be going on but often that appearance is a false one. A good approach (not necessarily a better one) is patience.

 

[G259]

I agree mostly, but you should not have to worry about the seal, as a towel or loose cover is on it at this point.

 

[BernardSmith]

Great point, G259 . My thought was that even if the bucket or carboy was nominally sealed but that that seal was not hermetic how then is this novice wine maker determining that there is no activity? In other words, if you assume that there is no seal what then is the novice able to use as evidence of either activity or no activity after only 24 hours?

 

[G259]

what then is the novice able to use as evidence of either activity or no activity after only 24 hours?

. . . what they tell me every Sunday, "Have faith, my son."

I thought that the initial phase was yeast multiplication, when they start rubbing elbows at the dinner table, they can start eating.

 

[salcoco]

wait 48 hours and then measure with hydrometer each day there after to detect activity

 

[DarrenUK]

I'm not going to lie... I was hoping that this thread would be filled with great little tips passed on by the old brewer's like crushed egg shells to clear your wine, tomato paste as nutrients or things like that rather than a discussion on what constitutes as activity in wine.
Not that I don't appreciate you taking the time to write on the thread but sling a little tip or trick in there at the end.

 

[DarrenUK]

I didn't mean for that post to come across dickish... It was ment to funny.

 

[BernardSmith]

I didn't mean for that post to come across dickish... It was ment to funny.

OK. I'll take the bait.
Brewers love heat but wine makers should perhaps try to avoid cooking fruit. Not only does cooked fruit taste like cooked fruit but heat sets pectins and pectins are what you want to set when you are making jam, not wine. For water soluble compounds cold water is fine. For compounds that are not soluble in cold water perhaps consider adding the fruit to the secondary where the alcohol can extract those compounds. Brewers brew beer much like those who brew tea or coffee brew their drinks with hot water. Wine makers should use any hot water for cleaning and not for wine making. There are some exceptions but most fruit wines are not in that class of exceptions.

 

[DarrenUK]

Who's talking about cooking anything? I was talking about bringing it up to temperature. Yeast has a point where it will just sit there dormant if it's too cold. You will also stress the yeast. Ideally you want to be between 20°c-26°c. Yes you can go lower if the yeast allows but it's a slower process but again this was for someone who not long pitched yeast. And I'm not baiting you. Although I am considering just deleting the thread

 

[BernardSmith]

This was a different "problem" not connected to yours. You asked that we offer additional problems and solutions. Mine was a solution to country wines that taste cooked.

 

[DarrenUK]

Ohhhhhhhh. My bad. I should probably lay off the wine

 

[DarrenUK]

Not that this is a wine specific tip.

AliExpress is really good for some brewing supplies.

An Atc refractometer on Amazon is £17 Down From £24. On AliExpress the same product is a little over £6.50.

Most of the stuff you find on Amazon is from China anyway, you just giving someone a stack. Of cash for nothing really. Cut out the middle man.

But I will warn you the waiting time can be 3 weeks in some cases. Can't say I have ever waited longer than that.

 

[Joel]

When in doubt, clean your gear. If your gear is clean then wine making is easy. granted 2 buck chuck isn't great but it gets the job done.

 

[winemaker81]

2 buck chuck

For those not in the USA, this is a wine marketed by the Charles Shaw winery and sold at Trader Joes. Apparently the winery makes some wine of its own and buys up a lot of cheap bulk wine, so the reds vary from lot to lot. In CA it retailed for $1.99 and Chuck is a nickname for Charles, so it was dubbed Two Buck Chuck. Last I knew the price is higher on the east coast USA, either $2.99 or $3.99.

I was told to buy a bottle, take it to the car, open and taste. If it's good, buy more from that case. If it's not, don't. [In most of the USA, opening a bottle in a parking lot is "open container" and is illegal. If anyone tries this, be very discreet.]

I tried it a few times, the best one was mediocre. The worst was highly acidic and stringent. I have a septic system and didn't want to damage it, so I poured the wine on a stump I was trying to eliminate. The stump is now gone, so it appears to have worked.

 

[Doug’s wines]

I will chime in. For any newbie ——. degas, degas, degas. I remember that rush of excitement to get the wine to the bottle and tended to think a wine was “out of gas” long before it really was. A lot of my early mistakes related to not getting the gas out of my wine:

Why won’t my wine clear - degas
I have odd tart / kit taste flavors - degas
Funny bottle aroma when I open that goes away - degas
I make Fizzy wine - obviously DEGAS

Now I bulk / barrel age for 1+ years and the problems are very different, but getting the gas out of my wine made for a much better process and product for me.

 

[BernardSmith]

I will chime in. For any newbie ——. degas, degas, degas. I remember that rush of excitement to get the wine to the bottle and tended to think a wine was “out of gas” long before it really was. A lot of my early mistakes related to not getting the gas out of my wine:

Why won’t my wine clear - degas
I have odd tart / kit taste flavors - degas
Funny bottle aroma when I open that goes away - degas
I make Fizzy wine - obviously DEGAS

Now I bulk / barrel age for 1+ years and the problems are very different, but getting the gas out of my wine made for a much better process and product for me.

The problem is that many novice winemakers do not have any pipeline so when they make a batch they want/need to bottle and drink it. The bigger problem is not simply the need to degas (in my experience wine will self degas if you allow it to age enough) but the need for patience. Patience is the number 1 secret that separates a drinkable wine from a delightful wine. You cannot teach patience. You need to learn it. And having a pipeline helps.
What also helps - in my opinion - is for novice wine makers to NOT emulate their brewing cousins. A brewer will look down their nose at a fellow brewer who brews beer in single gallon batches. But for wine makers just starting off who are making country wines (wines from fruit other than grapes, from vegetables and from flowers and honey) there is no natural law that prevents us from making gallon batches and making a batch a week or 4 batches a month means that after a year we will have almost 50 batches (hopefully, each batch better than the previous one) and that means we have a solid pipeline after about 6 months. And a good wine aged 6 months will be better than a good wine aged 1 month but a good wine aged 12 months or longer is likely to be closer to a great wine.

 

[Keiyh]

I will chime in. For any newbie ——. degas, degas, degas. I remember that rush of excitement to get the wine to the bottle and tended to think a wine was “out of gas” long before it really was. A lot of my early mistakes related to not getting the gas out of my wine:

Why won’t my wine clear - degas
I have odd tart / kit taste flavors - degas
Funny bottle aroma when I open that goes away - degas
I make Fizzy wine - obviously DEGAS

Now I bulk / barrel age for 1+ years and the problems are very different, but getting the gas out of my wine made for a much better process and product for me.

You are sooooo correct. The first batch I ever made, still have a few bottles, was not degassed enough. I have since added the drill bit degaser and what a difference!! Just made the Finer Wine Zinf and I degassed and degassed and degassed!!!

 

[sjjan]

I wait for 4-6 months for white wine to degas naturally in my SS tanks. Have no experience with actively degassing wine. What I do know is that time heals many “wounds”. Let wine age a bit and it will get better in almost all cases.

 

[Jovimaple]

Build up the pipeline by making Skeeter Pee or Dragon Blood quick drinking fun wines. But definitely degas them before bottling!