Dried Elderberry Wine - no secondary ferment, too acidic?

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drscottuk

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Hi Everyone! Just signed up here. I'm fairly new to winemaking and have 3 batches of wine on the go at the moment:

1) Dried elderberry
2) Dried elderflower
3) Strawberry

My main concern is with the dried elderberry wine..

I followed a good recipe to the T, primary ferment was pretty vigorous and lasted approx 4-5 days. I let it sit for another few days but after no activity did the first rack (as there was a huge amount of lees due to the recipe).

That was now 2 weeks ago, and the SG has not changed from 1.100. I just bought a pH meter which reads 2.9 pH.

After 1 week of no activity I tried a re-start wine yeast, mixed with orange juice and sugar as a starter solution. There was slight bubbling for 1 evening, but that stopped pretty quickly.

As to the smell, it seems a lot better than when all the must was in it, and is almost recognisable as wine.

My questions are -

1) Is there any way I can coax the wine to restart the secondary ferment?
2) Should I add precipitated chalk to increase the pH to 3.2 BEFORE trying to do 1) above?
3) Should I add a small amount of crushed campden tablet before trying 1) above?

Temp of the 5 gallon fermenting bin is approx 17 degrees C.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! The elderberry wine cost a fair bit in ingredients so I would really like it to reach the bottling stage.
 
1.100 is VERY high for a fermented wine. Is that an accurate reading (ie as a rookie did you mis-read the hydrometer).

Musts usually start 1.060 to 1.100 and finish .990 to 1.000.

What was the starting sg?

What yeast did you use?

Steve
 
I agee to Steves conclusions :p

1100 is good for the begin of fermentation not for the end.

If 1100 is really the figure the hydrometer is giving now
fermentation might have ended and you are left with a sweet
elderberry wine.......

Luc
 

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