Fermentations end?

[Krystal_p]

How do you tell when the original fermentation is finished? My airlock bubbles have slowed down, It's been racing for a like a week.. My kit said that fermentation should take seven days, I'm on day 11 of my Rosé and it's now a slower bubble. I just read that the airlock isn't a gauge to the end of fermentations so how do I know when its ready for the next part? I just realised yesterday I didn't do a starting reading, mainly because it's a 23 litre batch and it's pretty impossible to move it around anyway. I just left it to do it's thing.

(23 Litre Rosé Kit)

 

[cpfan]

Krystal...

A kit should have included instructions describing what to do. Unfortunately different kits, different instructions. So I don't want to guess what your kit's instructions say. Tell us what kit you are making and maybe someone can help. The maybe is because you are in England, and there are kits there that the North Americans that populate this place do not know.

BTW, I'm going to guess...day 11, slowed bubbles, although no temperature knowledge...you can probably transfer from the primary pail to a carboy. However, if the sg is still high due to cool temperatures, you may get renewed fermentation, and the wine will bubble up into the air lock. You should leave the wine in carboy checking the sg every 2-3 days until it is below 1.000 and hasn't changed over 2-3 days. Then continue with stabilizing & clearing.

Again, better advice comes with better info. Kit brand & name, plus current sg, and possibly temperature of the wine.

Steve

 

[g8keeper]

what steve said is correct krystal.....without the proper info, we can only guess on certain things, BUT in order to know if fermentation is finished or not, you need to use your hydrometer....taking gravity readings is the only way to be sure your wine is done fermenting....

 

[Krystal_p]

It's a Wilkinson kit, I work for the company.. They are a Hardware/general store with over 400 stores in the UK. Near enough everything we sell is 90% Wilko branded and you don't have them in America.. and the instructions are very basic. It doesn't help me out much. The reason I'm trying them out is because I sell them on my department, I'm the supervisor and they are very popular but the best way I can give customer service to my customers and to help the Customer Service Assistants and other team leaders I work alongside is to do it myself. I am the store "know it all".. and this is the kind of thing I do to maintain that.

I've made one Chardonnay and it's very nice but I've hit stumbling blocks because the instructions are lousy, They are really dumbed down but are very step by step, I take £350 a week on my homebrew. I used to have a small range and took £50 a week and fought to get the full Wilko range because there's a lot of demand for Homebrew equipment where I live. That's why I joined the forum because there's people out there who know better. I'm sure the people who design our kits are more into them looking pretty.

I have serious issues with my hydrometer.. It doesn't make any sense. My last batch of wine never read the same reading.. It's very confusing and the guide doesn't help because my hydrometer doesn't look like that and I can't find anything that matches it online.

I'm just learning the ropes and want to try a few kits to get the gist of it and then make some wine from scratch. I get asked where my homebrew section is about five times an hour. This is quite important to me that I nail this. Thanks for replying.

 

[Krystal_p]

The temp is 19c, The hydrometer reading is by the little 20 mark. so that's 1.020.. Does that help? I am so sorry for being such a woman.

 

[cpfan]

Krystal..

As a former store owner here in Canada, I'm very happy to see somebody working to promote the hobby.

Any chance that you can post a picture of the hydrometer online? Are the kit instructions online somewhere? I didn't see them after a brief search.

Have a look at some other kit instructions, perhaps they will help. Here are links to two sets of instructions that are a somewhat different. Perhaps one or the other will come close to your instructions.
http://www.vinecowine.com/userdocs/GenInstructions_2008.pdf
http://www.rjscraftwinemaking.com/assets/images/products/media/26271 GC, HE, VDV23.pdf

Here's a thread on hydrometers that may help you.
http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/f5/how-use-hydrometer-newbies-16574/

 

[Krystal_p]

Thanks, I've read that page, I know when it's finished where it should be because it has a bottling line on my hydrometer which I used last time for my first kit.. However I still don't understand how to tell if it has finished it's initial fermentation so I can proceed to the next step. It said it should take 7 days but It's been two weeks.. There is nothing that tells me. How are you supposed to know?

and no, nothing online yet.. They have a leaflet in store but doesn't tell you anything helpful either, it mainly involves a shopping list of things you need. I looked on the company's website but it's all for sale on there but they don't carry any more information than that as we sell thousands of products. Don't worry, I am a member of our store's "loop" and in the next meeting I am going to give feedback to the company that the instructions are next to useless.. All it says is "When the Fermentation is finished... This should take 7 days.." I don't want to move on and screw up 23 litres of wine.. How do you know when Fermentation is complete? What should the reading be?

 

[cpfan]

All it says is "When the Fermentation is finished... This should take 7 days.." I don't want to move on and screw up 23 litres of wine.. How do you know when Fermentation is complete? What should the reading be?

Under 1.000 for 3 days in a row. For the instructions that I linked, in my experience, the Vineco kits tend to finish around .992, but the instructions say below .995. The RJS kits tend to finish around .995, and the instructions say below .998.

Steve

 

[g8keeper]

Under 1.000 for 3 days in a row. For the instructions that I linked, in my experience, the Vineco kits tend to finish around .992, but the instructions say below .995. The RJS kits tend to finish around .995, and the instructions say below .998.

Steve

krystal, no matter what the numbers are, just as steve has explained, as long as the reading is below 1.000, and remains the same for 3 days, then the wine is done fermenting, and that is why using your hydrometer properly is important....don't use the "timetable" mentioned in your instructions, as that is only a generalization dependent on several factors, including temperature and yeast variety.....some fermentations have been known to take close to a month, where some as short as only a few days depending on the factors mentioned alone....but i reiterate, use your sg readings and not the "timetable"....

 

[Krystal_p]

I wasn't using the "timetable" I was just saying the instructions say it should take that long but don't explain it to me when the fermentation is done.. It doesn't tell you what it should look like or what the reading should be and I need someone to tell me that. There's isn't anywhere I can find that tells me that is done when it's under 1.000 three days in a row. That's all I need to know. I was using my hydrometer, Someone asked me to take the temp and reading for more information. My first wine batch was great, This is my second but it's a different wine and it's 30 bottles instead of 6 so everything is different, I just wanted to be sure before I moved it along.

 

[BernardSmith]

30 bottles or 6 should not be so very different

I don't think that there should be any significant difference whether you are making 30 bottles (about 5 gallons imperial) or 6 bottles (about 1 gallon) if the must you are fermenting is juice. You would be transferring the wine from the primary fermenter to the secondary (ibrew container or carboy) at more or less the same point in the fermentation (around 1.020 or less. I tried to see if Wilkinson publish or make available their kit instructions online but I could not find them. It looks like your company promotes specially designed fermenters rather than more common glass carboys, but the underlying principles are the same.

 

[DoctorCAD]

First, the "wine" you are making probably won't be done in the timeline shown in the kit instructions. Only under ideal conditions, at exact temperatures, with perfect ingrediants and lots of luck.

You are probabyl looking at 2 months at a minimum, and that should be stretched out to 3 months for better results.

General guidelines would be:

7 to 10 days in the bucket
Rack into fermenter
10 to 14 days in the fermenter
(SG under 1.00 for 3 days)
Re-rack off all sediment
Leave alone until day 60 (better to day 90)
Bottle
Sit 30 days before drinking (6 months would be better)

Thats a broad timeline that works well with kits.