Blackberries Pomogranate wine

[bladeofthemoon]

hey guys,

its been a while since i was last here. got busy with work and life, resulting in getting married and with a killer work load lol

anyhow, with my last batch of orange wine coming out very well, i decided to experiment with them. This latest batch is blackberry with pomegranate.

I've used about 3 kgs of fresh off the tree blackberries and about 2 kgs of pomegranate. i tasted the mix to see how much of what to use so i think i should be fine where the taste is concerned. i've added about 100 grams of raisin to add some body to the wine (which worked very well in the previous batch of orange) and of course sugar. however, to make it a sweet wine, i've just added about 500 grams to the mix and the rest i'll add after the 2nd fermentation is over.

ofcourse, with an experimental wine like this, i have already run into some trouble. as usual, i don't have access to wine yeast so i've used regular yeast. i activated it and poured it into the must. its been about 12 hours and there is no response. now this usually happens with my wines so i have to put the container in a hot water bath to raise the temp and this usually gets the fermentation going. however, this time its not happening. so i would like to ask the following:

1. i used packeted yeast which needs to be activated last night. is it alright to use fresh yeast if the fermentation hasn't begun by evening completing 24 hours? the fresh yeast is also used for bread making as was the one added last night but they are different brands. the fresh yeast is alive and kicking so no need to activate it. what do you guys say?

2. could it be the acidity levels stopping the yeast from working since i haven't checked the acidity levels?

 

[bladeofthemoon]

just another development, the wine has been fermenting very well for the last 4 days, however, when i went to stir it today evening, it had a whitish kinda color on the top of the must, like it had dried or something. it was sort of a bleached color. is that ok? i cannot recollect if something like that happened in the past. shouldn't be external bacteria since i have it covered with a thick clean cloth and below the cloth is clear wrap sheet with some small holes poked into it to let it sort of breathe.

i smelled the must and it smells like alcohol but doesn't smell foul or anything. what do you guys think?

 

[bladeofthemoon]

is it Mycoderma or otherwise known as Flowers of wine??