need help - grapes aren't fermenting

[longisland]

i've been making wine rudimentarily for the last 10 years. never used any additives or preservatives and everything was always very easy. For the 1st time my grape guy convinced me to try meta and pectin because I was making pinot noir which was expensive. I've always done a cab blend in the past. I did everything i always did with the crush/press/yeast. The demis have been in the basement for 2 weeks now with airlocks and literally no bubbling. Every year there was always the heavy steady bubbling from the airlocks. I am now thinking something went wrong with the stuff I added.

Any ideas of what I should be testing and hopefully adding to kick start the fermentation?

Very scared about losing this years batch

Dan

 

[cpfan]

so, so many questions...here's a few...

Specific gravity readings?
Temperature of the must/wine?
What yeast did you use?
How soon after the meta was the yeast added?
How much meta was added?

Steve

 

[longisland]

so, so many questions...here's a few...

Specific gravity readings?
Temperature of the must/wine?
What yeast did you use?
How soon after the meta was the yeast added?
How much meta was added?

Steve

thanks for the 1st pass Steve.....

waiting on my brother to bring over the hygrometer. right now everything is my basement cement floors and walls. same as always probably a constant 65-70 degrees.

for the pinot (22 cases) i used 11 packets of KV1116
for the cab blend (22 cases) is used 11 packets of RC212

i used 10 grams of meta for each (20 total) and 200 drops of pectin for each (400 total)

both were added, 4 days after crush and 3 days before the press....

lighting any light bulbs???

 

[CBell]

Did you add the kmeta and the yeast at the same time? How far apart were they?

 

[longisland]

Did you add the kmeta and the yeast at the same time? How far apart were they?

yeast was added same day as the crush. meta was added 4 days later

 

[LoveTheWine]

yeast was added same day as the crush. meta was added 4 days later

The normal procedure is to : Crush into big primary fermenter, add pectic enzyme and KMETA.
24 hrs later pitch yeast (I prefer to hydrate and make a starter before pitch)
the next day ferment should be apparent with a dry cap of skins on top. Push the cap down daily. When fermentation is close to being done, press the skins and put into demijohns.

Add more KMETA only when fermentation is clearly finished as the original amount will have dissipated during fermentation.


It seems as though you did some of your steps backwards.
If you add KMETA after adding yeast it may stun yeasts and stall or stop fermentation.

I would: Heat the juice up to 72-75 degrees. Check with Hydrometer to see if ferment even started, re-introduce more yeast, but make a nice starter first. You only should need about one pkg of yeast per 23L of juice at this point.

 

[longisland]

The normal procedure is to : Crush into big primary fermenter, add pectic enzyme and KMETA.
24 hrs later pitch yeast (I prefer to hydrate and make a starter before pitch)
the next day ferment should be apparent with a dry cap of skins on top. Push the cap down daily. When fermentation is close to being done, press the skins and put into demijohns.

Add more KMETA only when fermentation is clearly finished as the original amount will have dissipated during fermentation.


It seems as though you did some of your steps backwards.
If you add KMETA after adding yeast it may stun yeasts and stall or stop fermentation.

I would: Heat the juice up to 72-75 degrees. Check with Hydrometer to see if ferment even started, re-introduce more yeast, but make a nice starter first. You only should need about one pkg of yeast per 23L of juice at this point.

Thanks Aaron, 'm going to give that a shot

 

[LoveTheWine]

No problem.
Have you made a yeast starter before?

There are many ways to do it but here is one way:

-Put 50ml per yeast pack of warm (100f max) water in a large sanitized bowl, sprinkle yeast on top, wait 15 min and mix well.

-add a very small amount of grape juice to the yeast in bowl and mix
keep doing this every so often for 4-12 hrs. By the end of the day you should have a few Liters of juice fermenting quite well in the bowl.
-pour carefully into the rest of the juice. Mix well the next day.

~you may want to use some yeast nutrient as well. This will ensure a nice clean and thorough fermentation.

 

[longisland]

thanks everyone for all the help. tested the sg and there was no more sugar left so I couldn't re-yeast. And somehow the alcohol level was at 16%. So looks like the 4 days on the skins was able to ferment before I accidentally killed it with the meta.

I racked everything over the weekend to get out as much o2 as possible and now the wine will sit. Both batches actually taste half way decent only the cab blend has a bit of a smell to it. I was told that I may want to condition the wine in a few months. I'm going to start reading some old posts but since I'm very hesitant now to add anything was curious about peoples experience with conditioners and if this is something I should consider?