Frementation with out yeast?

[.303Ross]

This is my first post and this seems like the right place of this. I have just started my 3 gallon batch of Balckberry wine form wild berries. I have not pitched the yeast yet but after coming home from class for the day i noticed the air lock was moving and upon removing the lid there was a small head of foam...now i added five campden tablets on saturday night after i tested the acid and sg and have not touched it since then. whats going on here and can this be saved...spent hours picking all those berries in the woods. any help is greatly appreciated. and i am new to wine making if that is not obvious.

 

[grapeman]

I would go ahead and pitch the yeast of your choice now.


One question though. Did you crush the tablets up before stirring into the must well? If not it may not have dissipated enough to stun all the native yeast and it began fermenting. Since it appears to be going already, get your yeast in there also. Chances are it will finish up or take over from the wild yeast.

 

[Tom]

Thats Wild Yeast doing its thing. Campton tabs only stun the wild yeast. That gives you time to add your yeast. I would have added your yeast early Sunday.
Let it go and you can still get good wine..
What was your recipe? I just started mine last week.

 

[.303Ross]

my recipe was one out of a book that i recieved from my grandfather, an old wine art book i believe.
no i didn't crush the tablets, will remember that one.
now i am confused here,are campden tables used for steralizing am i just confusing my self here. i thought they were. and how do you know how many to add. i hear some people use more than recomended but then let the must sit for about a day. that why i added 5 to a 3 gallon batch. educate me please.

 

[Wade E]

Campden tablets have a few uses. They are used for sanitizing also for stunning wild yeast and again as an anti-oxidant in your wine. You have to crush the tablets very well and also dissolve them in a little water or your must. Putting them in whole did very little and you will have to extract them now so that they dont finally dissolve and cause a problem.

 

[grapeman]

The proper rate for adding at the start to stun the yeast (not totally kill-that would take too much) is one tablet per gallon. If you don't crush it when adding, it will just sit partially undissolved and do nothing to help kill bacteria and stun the yeast. Always crush them up well. They are just a convenient form of potassium metabulsulfite or k-meta. They are good for small batches of a gallon or two. You let it sit for a day so most of the sulfites are given off to the air and that enables the yeast you add to start working instead of being stunned by the campden.

 

[.303Ross]

ok thank you for all your help. only time will tell how this turnned out. man waiting is not much fun.

 

[Cracked Cork]

You dont want to shoot yourself in the foot from the start, as soon as you get your berries squished and into the must you should add your ground up camden tablets, or better yet buy some Potassium Metabisulfite powder and use 1/4 tsp in 5 gallons, its cheaper and a whole lot easier to dissolve. Crackedcork