Champagne trouble

[bcvwines]

Hi im in a bit of a dilemna. I started a batch of champagne almost 7 weeks ago. The starting sg was 1.080 so i intended for an abv of 10.5, i was then planning on priming it with 1 oz/ gal. However after over 6 weeks of steady bubbling in the carboy the sg is still at 1.000. I'm unsure why it has taken so long, it has been bubbling at every three minutes for three weeks now and the room temperature is at a consistent 75 degress. The real dilemna is that this batch was intended for an occasion a week from now as i intended it to be done and primed at week 4. Is there anything I can do? if i were to bottle it now would the rresidual sugar suffice to carbonate the bottle, or would it be more likely to explode?

 

[Luc]

Making champagne in a 7 week time schedule is way to short timewise.
Winemaking is a hobby that needs patience.

So if the event comes up next year, you will be ready.

For this years event buy some bottles.

Luc

 

[Tom]

Luc is right you cant rush wine.
One thing is there may be alot of gas. Try degassing now, wait, then ck the gravity

 

[Wade E]

There is no way you could have done this in 7 weeks as it would have been a cloudy mess and most likely not even carbontaed. It should take longer then this just for your wine to ferment and clear and then you hav to prime it, let it stand upright or on its side to carbonate, then flip them over for riddling where all the sediment goes into the stopper and this alone usually takes around 8 weeks and then degoreg it all which is the act of freezing just the neck portion of the bottle while still upside down and then removing that frozen plug and topping off and then let the bottle condition for a few more weeks minimum! This is really almost a year process!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Racer]

If you had a still wine sitting in a carboy all nice and clear, isn't there a way to force carbonate that wine?

 

[Tom]

Wine is not like making beer. With beer you add some priming sugar and in 3-4 weeks you "may" have carbonated beer. The reason this works is there is still yeast left over.
"Sparkling" wine is different. it's hard to bottle condition wine.
One way though is to keg it under pressure and serve it from there (NOT RECCOMENDED). For these reasons you will firnd sparkling wine about a year old before its sent to retail.
You will also need a different cork, wire and different corker. Not all corkers can put this "cork" in a bottle. Another thing is how much pressure needed to make a good wine..
If you just want one or 2 then you can put wine in a 1ltr soda bottle and buy a carbonater and add CO2. Now this I have done and came out OK but, just one bottle.

 

[Wade E]

I have force carbonated wine and its okay but not the same as the bubbles are bigger using this method and dispesre much faaster when poured which results in a flatte sparkling wine and does not stay sparkling as long when poured.