English former brewer: having a go at hedgerow wines

[WilliamFromEngland]

Hi everyone.

I spent 12 years making English ales commercially up til 2020 and now I'm trying to get into making my own fruit wines like the older generation used to do at home.

As a brewer I used to get questions from home brewers, often about slow fermentations which were causing infections, my advice was always, aerate your wort immediately before pitching yeast and the yeast will dominate the environment before anything wild gets the chance. It seems like it's different in wine making.

My first fermentation (of wild rhubarb wine) is going alarmingly slowly (to my mind. I got an OG of about 1.1 and a week later it's 1.052 and losing about .007 a day, still in the primary fermenter.

My beer fermentations were pretty much all over in 4 days whereupon I'd chill the beer and rack it off the top of the sediment into closed, chilled tanks with low pressure CO2 on top then allow to settle for a week before packaging.


So the first thing I need guidance on is, at what gravity should I be racking this stuff into demijohns.


Also: what's in a campden tablet and why and when should I be adding that and whatever other additives you would recommend?

Any advice to an absolute novice winemaker, would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

 

[Ohio Bob]

Let’s back up a step. The slow ferment is the first issue. Possibilities include low ferment temperature (say below 60F), or low pH (meaning highly acidic), or improper yeast. If you went from a recipe which called for adding acid I would question that. Can you measure pH with simple measuring strips?

Is the yeast intended for wines? It may not like the high SG it’s currently in.

A Campden tablet is potassium metabisulfite just in tablet form. It’s used to prevent oxidation and bacterial infection when racking. I personally add it to fruit wines once the wines have fermented dry. Some add at crushing but a well established yeast starter for me has been working. After wines are dry, it is added at any subsequent rackings.

When to rack is a personal decision, fruit wines typically I would do once the SG stops decreasing by 3 days or so. If the fermentation bucket is sealed you can go a lot longer, and possible extract more tannins from the juice. If it’s an open bucket you risk bacterial spoilage if you don’t rack to a closed carboy.

 

[WilliamFromEngland]

Let’s back up a step. The slow ferment is the first issue. Possibilities include low ferment temperature (say below 60F), or low pH (meaning highly acidic), or improper yeast. If you went from a recipe which called for adding acid I would question that. Can you measure pH with simple measuring strips?

Is the yeast intended for wines? It may not like the high SG it’s currently in.

A Campden tablet is potassium metabisulfite just in tablet form. It’s used to prevent oxidation and bacterial infection when racking. I personally add it to fruit wines once the wines have fermented dry. Some add at crushing but a well established yeast starter for me has been working. After wines are dry, it is added at any subsequent rackings.

When to rack is a personal decision, fruit wines typically I would do once the SG stops decreasing by 3 days or so. If the fermentation bucket is sealed you can go a lot longer, and possible extract more tannins from the juice. If it’s an open bucket you risk bacterial spoilage if you don’t rack to a closed carboy.

Thanks for that. I didn't measure pH, I'm using a wine making yeast and pitching temp was about 65f. I'll measure the pH when I test gravity later today but I didn't add any acid. What am I aiming for? About 5.5?

I have a feeling the problem is insufficient aeration, I did get my daughter to splash it about a bit but in future I'll use a duck's foot to drop it into the fermenter. This is only a 1gal batch for a first effort. I haven't brewed anything except tea for over 4 years lol.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean about the fermentation stopping... Do you mean when it's slowed down to about .0003 per day?

 

[winechef]

My fruit wines ph about 3. 2 to 3. 6 I've had as low as 2. 9 and still fermentated if too low won't ferment too high 4. 0 risk bacteria.

your SG start is normal

maybe need to add yeast nutrients. just needs some food. and stir it. this is very important for fruits with lots of sugar added

could also be your yeast type. can make a starter with an aggressive yeast and try again adding small amounts of must until it's finished

I. do open fermentation. if you are closed fermentation might need some oxygen. temperature seems right it will heat up the more rapid fermentation happens.

if it stalls out no progression for a day or 2, maybe transfer to sealed jar and give it time might finish slowly

 

[Ohio Bob]

my advice was always, aerate your wort immediately before pitching yeast and the yeast will dominate the environment before anything wild gets the chance. It seems like it's different in wine making.

It’s not really different. Until the SG gets to 1.020-ish, the yeast need oxygen to be a healthy colony. So advice is to stir a couple of times a day. This is especially true if you have fruit or grape skins. These will float to the surface and be a site for bacteria or fruit flies to take hold. So the fermentation vessel is recommended to be a bucket, not a carboy.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean about the fermentation stopping... Do you mean when it's slowed down to about .0003 per day?

Fermentation will stop when the yeast are dead, having successfully converted all the sugars to alcohol and CO2. Your hydrometer should read say 1.000 for 3 straight days, might read 0.998, might read 1.002. At this point I would remove the fruit, press what juice you can get out of the pulp, rack the wine to get it off the gross lees (bits of pulp), add the potassium metabisulfite (aka Kmeta). Make sure the carboy is topped off to minimize the headspace, to reduce oxygen. At this stage and for the future, oxygen is your enemy.

Wine is very forgiving, measuring SG to the 4th decimal place is not the accuracy that is needed. If that is what you meant. 2 digit accuracy is often pretty good, however it’s good practice to write to 3 digits just for the sake of clarity.

 

[DrGriz]

I'll just 2nd the yeast nutrient suggestion. A lot of "fruits" (rhubarb isn't exactly a fruit, of course) don't have everything a yeast needs, unlike grapes. I add nutrient to all of my fruit wine musts. Doesn't hurt and sometimes I will even have to double dose.

I am absolutely delighted with my rhubarb wine, btw. It's great.

 

[WilliamFromEngland]

It's still plugging away at .007per day so I reckon I'll just let it keep going. It's in a bucket with loads of head space and the lid loosely fitted to keep the fruit flies out.

Stirring seems extremely drastic to me with my pure mind but as this is a pure experiment I'll give it a go and report results.

It’s not really different. Until the SG gets to 1.020-ish, the yeast need oxygen to be a healthy colony. So advice is to stir a couple of times a day. This is especially true if you have fruit or grape skins. These will float to the surface and be a site for bacteria or fruit flies to take hold. So the fermentation vessel is recommended to be a bucket, not a carboy.



Fermentation will stop when the yeast are dead, having successfully converted all the sugars to alcohol and CO2. Your hydrometer should read say 1.000 for 3 straight days, might read 0.998, might read 1.002. At this point I would remove the fruit, press what juice you can get out of the pulp, rack the wine to get it off the gross lees (bits of pulp), add the potassium metabisulfite (aka Kmeta). Make sure the carboy is topped off to minimize the headspace, to reduce oxygen. At this stage and for the future, oxygen is your enemy.

Wine is very forgiving, measuring SG to the 4th decimal place is not the accuracy that is needed. If that is what you meant. 2 digit accuracy is often pretty good, however it’s good practice to write to 3 digits just for the sake of clarity.

 

[WilliamFromEngland]

I'll just 2nd the yeast nutrient suggestion. A lot of "fruits" (rhubarb isn't exactly a fruit, of course) don't have everything a yeast needs, unlike grapes. I add nutrient to all of my fruit wine musts. Doesn't hurt and sometimes I will even have to double dose.

I am absolutely delighted with my rhubarb wine, btw. It's great.

I'll give that a whirl when I stir it!

 

[WilliamFromEngland]

My fruit wines ph about 3. 2 to 3. 6 I've had as low as 2. 9 and still fermentated if too low won't ferment too high 4. 0 risk bacteria.

your SG start is normal

maybe need to add yeast nutrients. just needs some food. and stir it. this is very important for fruits with lots of sugar added

could also be your yeast type. can make a starter with an aggressive yeast and try again adding small amounts of must until it's finished

I. do open fermentation. if you are closed fermentation might need some oxygen. temperature seems right it will heat up the more rapid fermentation happens.

if it stalls out no progression for a day or 2, maybe transfer to sealed jar and give it time might finish slowly

I'll give the yeast nutrient a whirl. I didn't have any when I started but I do now. Near as I can tell pH is about 4.5 - 5. I always have trouble reading strips and I hate digital pH meters bc they're always out of calibration.

Maybe I'll get some 3.8 - 5.4 strips to give my eyesight a better shot

 

[DrGriz]

I'll give that a whirl when I stir it!

Yeast likes oxygen at this stage. Don't be afraid to stir it several times a day!

 

[Rice_Guy]

welcome to WMT

- the rhubarb I grow can come in at pH 2.6 to 2.9. pH acts as a preservative keeping micro issues down and unfortunately if under pH 2.8 will make the yeast struggle. The good off all this is that low pH acts as a preservative giving better resistance to oxidation. SO2 is more effective.
- You noted an OG of 1.100, high solids/ high osmotic pressure acts as a preservative keeping micro issues down, the yeast can tolerate high sugar but stressors are cumulative. Low pH combined with high sugar is a double whammy. Wine is different than ale in that the yeast are growing longer. This requires more nitrogen compounds for cell synthesis. It isn’t unusual for a must to be formulated at 250 or 300 ppm nitrogen. I like step feeding with organic nitrogen. ,,, More with higher sugar/ less for low nitrogen strains.
- Temperature speeds the fermentation rate. One down side is that it increases the peak nutrient demand. I expect most ferments to be done in a week
- oxidation of alcohol making acetaldehyde is a risk once we get under 1/3 sugar utilization and cell reproduction stops

- patience, beer and ale are harder than 12% wine. Alcohol is a preservative.

 

[Raptor99]

I'll give the yeast nutrient a whirl. I didn't have any when I started but I do now.

The lack of nutrients is probably the reason that your fermentation is so slow. I haven't made rhubarb wine, but most of my fruit wines finish fermentation within a week.

 

[Rice_Guy]

I do rhubarb every year. Rhubarb is the only wine I have done which got stuck (at 1.014)

The lack of nutrients is probably the reason that your fermentation is so slow. I haven't made rhubarb wine, but most of my fruit wines finish fermentation within a week.

I don’t think I could have fixed a stuck fermentation with higher nitrogen. ( & Yes nitrogen might have helped if it was severely low)

Micro ,,, has a concept called LD50 ,,, this is a set of conditions where 50% of a microorganism will be killed off. ex if I pasteurize but less than the standard 140F for 40 minutes or if I treat with SO2 but put the dosage at half the standard or if have a high enough percentage ABV but let the system go aerobic. ,, etc etc. ,,, The cumulative effect of several stressors will change the factory rules on where LD50 is. ex my FDA approved kill process at pH 4.2 is more severe than at pH 3.9, ,,, or significantly less severe if I am at pH 2 producing a soda. ,,, Likewise I can tweak how severe a process is as by adding nitrogen flushing or CO2 or lowering water activity as by adding salts to a meat or nitrates to a sausage or polyphosphates to a non refrigerated cheese or sugar to a syrup or alcohol to cough syrup etc etc.

wine as a FDA / health department product is dirty, ie wine has variations from fruit to fruit, ,,, And it is the cumulative effect that will stress your yeast or eliminate risk of bacterial infections, not just nitrogen.

 

[Raptor99]

And it is the cumulative effect that will stress your yeast or eliminate risk of bacterial infections, not just nitrogen.

Interesting. So would that mean that in a low pH cranberry wine, it might be especially important to have enough nutrients? Mead makers usually follow a SNA protocol such as TOSNA. Now I am wondering if the natural anti-microbial properties of honey might be one reason that that is especially important.

A quick search revealed several scientific studies related to this question. This one is way over my head, but the conclusion is that there is limited interaction between the stress factors examined in this particular study: https://academic.oup.com/femsyr/article/17/6/fox051/3950270?login=false

Another study found synergistic effects of ethanol and SO2 in causing yeast death in the second fermentation while making sparkling wine: https://oeno-one.eu/article/view/4809

 

[Rice_Guy]

Rhubarb from last year. YAN 130ppm; pH 3.49; SG 1.019; TA 0.80%.
OOPS, ,,, (I should turn on the computer instead of remembering historical numbers while at the fishing cabin) few pH numbers starting at 2016; 3.31, 3.32, 3.14, 3.27, 3.67, 3.87. (observation ~ mom's rhubarb isn't getting picked any more. it has unusually high pH and SG.)
I haven't run YAN cranberry, ought to do it for laughs. pH of cranberry cocktail 3.49, and a few fresh pressed juices; 2.70, 2.40, 2,52, 2.69, 2.67, ,, and Langers frozen cranberry concentrate 2.87

 

[Jovimaple]

@WilliamFromEngland Welcome to WMT!

I have lots of rhubarb in the freezer that needs to be made into wine! This post is inspiring me to move that up on my list of what wine to make next.