Help! Raspberry wine stuck at 1.000 SG.

[janiekay]

Hi fellow wino's!
I've been getting help from this site by reading posts for quite a while, but this is my first post.
I've been making fruit wines for quite a few years now (since 2015). This past winter, we went south for about 5 months- first time I've left wine that long, because it wasn't ready to bottle before we left. I just re-racked the wine, and the SG is 1.000. I usually wait until SG is .990 because I like a dry wine, but the wine is totally clear. It does however look like it is still doing something because the airlock is bubbling. I do have the sediment from the final (or so I thought) racking. Should I add this back into the carboy and stir and see what happens or should I mix up some more yeast and try to start fermentation that way? I'm thinking that it didn't finish fermenting because of 2 things: 1) it was colder than normal in my basement where I have the wine, and 2) I didn't stir or rack it for 5 months.
Any ideas?

 

[winemaker81]

Couple of things.

Letting the wine set without touching it will not stop a fermentation, although if the wine got too cold, that can slow it down or stop it. How cold did the wine get?

Ferments do not necessarily go to 0.990, depending on what's in the wine. Heavy reds may not go below 0.998. Previous ferments all going to 0.990 does not mean this one will, too. I've also had ferments stop above 1.000 and nothing I did got them going again, and I have no idea why.

Taste the wine -- do you taste sugar? If not, it could be done. The bubbles you see could be outgassing, so that's no indication of fermentation.

I'd rack the wine, as that sometimes kickstarts a stopped ferment, and it will help with degassing. Add K-meta.

Then ignore it for another 3 months. If you are not seeing any change by the time it's 10 months old, the yeast is dead and the ferment is done. Bottle it.

 

[Hazelemere]

Hi fellow wino's!
I've been getting help from this site by reading posts for quite a while, but this is my first post.
I've been making fruit wines for quite a few years now (since 2015). This past winter, we went south for about 5 months- first time I've left wine that long, because it wasn't ready to bottle before we left. I just re-racked the wine, and the SG is 1.000. I usually wait until SG is .990 because I like a dry wine, but the wine is totally clear. It does however look like it is still doing something because the airlock is bubbling. I do have the sediment from the final (or so I thought) racking. Should I add this back into the carboy and stir and see what happens or should I mix up some more yeast and try to start fermentation that way? I'm thinking that it didn't finish fermenting because of 2 things: 1) it was colder than normal in my basement where I have the wine, and 2) I didn't stir or rack it for 5 months.
Any ideas?

leave it alone. Taste it. Then sweeten it if you have to, to drop the tanginess and sorbate it. I wouldn't worry about the SG at 1.000.

 

[janiekay]

It tastes a little sweet for me at this SG. It has been sitting in a carboy for about 9 months. I'm not sure how cold the basement got. We kept the heat on at 50, but the basement is typically a little cooler than the upstairs. I did not rack it until a few weeks after we got home and the whole house was warmer. I probably should have checked SG before I racked it. I may have to drink a sweeter than normal red this year!

 

[winemaker81]

It tastes a little sweet for me at this SG. It has been sitting in a carboy for about 9 months. I'm not sure how cold the basement got. We kept the heat on at 50, but the basement is typically a little cooler than the upstairs. I did not rack it until a few weeks after we got home and the whole house was warmer. I probably should have checked SG before I racked it. I may have to drink a sweeter than normal red this year!

The yeast is probably dead. As per previous advice, rack it to potentially re-invigorate it and degas, give it a month or 2, and call it done. At this point I don't expect it to re-ignite, but Mother Nature doesn't respect my opinion.

 

[Jovimaple]

Welcome to WMT!

 

[Rice_Guy]

Welcome to WMT, from a fellow Wisconsin yeast farmer who was picking raspberry yesterday, , , , , which part?

You are talking about farming corn and noting that Wisconsin rain is low this year so why is the yield down? There are several factors that keep the yeast happy and some of them feel like chanting to the Gods. Some of the basics are YAN, temperature, pH, type of sugar, percentage alcohol, ppm SO2, oxygen in the growth phase and time. Changing one of the optimum factors will cause stress which will shift where the tolerable range is for everything else. Wine is a multi variable food preservation system.

1.000 is not a bad end point. I have been above that a few times when running high stress low pH rhubarb. Where you are now you are saying the balance is off, it is too sweet. You have several directions to change the balance 1) add acid to shift where the sweetness balance is. The trend is that a higher percentage TA requires higher sugar to balance. This should be done with a bench trial so you don’t over shoot, 2) add a finishing tannin, tannin will complement the acid flavors and shift the perceived sweetness, again this should be done with bench trials, 3) let it where it is, in the US market most sales of fruit wines are above 1.005, 4) add another sharp flavor as ginger or pepper, 5) allow it to age a bit, oxidized alcohol (acetaldehyde) is a sharp flavor.

 

[Rice_Guy]

The figure below shows where blue ribbon wines balance the grams of acid per liter.

A guideline for where to balance TA on wine;
after club contest this year I collected eight first place wines which are the red triangles
View attachment 81200
The sample set "cloud" is primarily commercial wines, with some collected in the vinters club and here on WineMakingTalk
NOTE: TA is one of several quality traits which a first place wine has as absence of flavor defect, appropriate aroma for the variety and clarity , , , etc.
NOTE 2: this is an easy test, if ya'll are interested in your wine ,,, PM me

 

[sour_grapes]

Welcome to WMT from another Wisconsinite.

 

[Hazelemere]

leave it alone. Taste it. Then sweeten it if you have to, to drop the tanginess and sorbate it. I wouldn't worry about the SG at 1.000.

try adding a bit of citric acid to it to drop the sweetness e.g. 1/4 to 1/2 tsp per carboy should improve it if you don't like the sweetness

 

[janiekay]

Thanks all for the warm welcome.

I started making cider as my intro to winery, as a way to use up a great apple crop after making more applesauce and pie filling than we were probably going to use.

try adding a bit of citric acid to it to drop the sweetness e.g. 1/4 to 1/2 tsp per carboy should improve it if you don't like the sweetness

That sounds like an idea!

 

[Hazelemere]

If you have lots of apples try making cyser i.e. apple juice with no water and no sugar - just (unheated un-pasterized honey) with apple juice. Get the best honey in bulk that you find. Not too strong in flavour e.g. not buckwheat. Clover is a bit too mild orange blossom is better. Wildflower honey is ok and better than clover. What kind of honey do you have access to un-pasteurized? What kind of apples are you talking about? You can even make up to 7 wines 1) raspberry like the one you made 2) apple with sugar 3) apple with honey 4) raspberry with honey 5) raspberry with apple (no honey) 6) raspberry with apple (only honey) 7) raspberry Chambord (my favourite) i.e. what you have in a carboy topped up with French Chambord (1 bottle of black raspberry liqueur). You can even do both 1 bottle Chambord to fill a 15 bottle carboy with some of your raspberry wine and do the rest as a non-Chambord version. You can add citric acid to the Chambord infused wine with sorbate and a bit of sulphite to get the flavour you like. I guarantee you will get something really tasty with the Chambord. You are welcome to use my label if you like it. Give the wine 3 months to settle down after sulphite e.g. 1/8 tsp per 25 bottle carboy raises sulphite by 10 ppm if it is powdery (no lumps) and freash.

 

[Hazelemere]

PS I am only making Raspberry Chambord 2023 this year from my own organic raspberries (no honey) at ~1 lb raspberries per bottle e.g. 12-13 lbs raspberries should give me 15+ bottles. I have a yoga instructor that I adore who is a gourmet Vegan chef Dreena Burton who loves to pick my raspberries so I have to give her a good pick.

If you have access to really ripe blackberries or dewberries I'll show you another recipe that uses dried elderberries plus Chambord or Cassis.

 

[David Violante]

Welcome to WMT!