Pear wine question

[mcoltezo]

Hi everyone,

I'm not new to wine making but I am new to making it straight from the fruit as compared to a store bought kit. I am looking for some advice if anyone has any ideas.

We made up our recipe from looking at several online that I found. One thing we didn't want, though, was to use chemicals so we are winging it and so far...not too bad. The following is our recipe and where we are after 24 days of it sitting in the primary fermenter. We are not sure what we should do next.

3 - 4 litres of pear juice (approx 15 lbs before juicing)
3 gal water
6 lb sugar
lemon juice from a bottle to the equivalent of 5 lemons
Yeast (Bourgovin RC212)

Starting specific gravity 1.090
after 24 days, specific gravity 1.040

When we opened the lid tonight we were relieve to find no mold! And it has had some activity thus the change in SG. Whew! But it needs to get down below 1.0 to something like 0.88 (or 12% alcohol or less).

We also found a layer of what looked like yeast on the top and it appeared puffed up (there had also been chunks of floating pear must when we started). I skimmed out some of the yeast so we could measure the SG and it appeared that there was activity from below as “bubbles” came up (they weren’t quite bubbles).

Do we:

a. rack it to a new primary fermenter and add more yeast (Lalvin EC 1118 is what we have to put in it) and let it stand another week or two

b. leave it in the current bucket and add the yeast

c. (leave it or move it and…) do something else like add raisins, more sugar, more lemon, some tea …along with more yeast?

d. Other?

Thanks in advance for any help with our experiment!!

Cheers,
Deanna

 

[Arne]

Try stirring it up some, get some O2 in it. If it is cool, warm it up to 75 degrees or so. If that doesn't keep it going, let us know and we will get you some more advise. Arne.

 

[Duster]

24 days in the primary seems like a long time, what is the must temp?
I would not add any more sugar, Like Arne said, give it a good stir every 12 hours or so and make sure it is around the 75 degree mark and see if things don't improve over the next couple of days.
since fermentation has been that slow, if you rack it into the secondary now it may come to a crawl.
if it wasn't for the "no chemicals" I would say you need some energizer in it.

 

[Deezil]

Take the lid off, and instead put a towel or something else breathable over it, its still at the point where it benefits from oxygen during fermentation. Giving a stir like already mentioned helps too.

I know you're going anti-additives, and i've steered that way myself mostly, but i would encourage you to look into yeast nutrient and yeast energizer - they're mostly used up, when used right, during a fermentation - and see if you're comfortable with it. 24 days is a long time in primary & having the right nutrients available will help the yeast work faster, shortening your primary time.

Just a couple things to think about.

 

[mcoltezo]

Thanks for all the ideas. We will try stirring it. We had the primary fairly sealed with tape around the lid to keep little (itbity) flies out that we seem to still have from our plants or who knows what.

I speculate our temp may be an issue. Our house is cool ...in the mid 60s. All our other wines have been fine (despite the agast I've heard in times past when I have mentioned our low temp...they all turn out). But maybe this wine is different or the yeast is. At our supply store, the temps given for our usual yeast go as low as we normally are. And, it's the same yeast mentioned above.

What is yeast nutrient?

I scooped out a fair amount of the top yeast. Should we add the other packet I've mentioned above?

Thanks!

 

[Duster]

if fermentation has not stopped or stalled and is in fact just slow, there is no need to add the other yeast packet. as long as those little critters are still alive they will multiply all by themselves as long as you give them what they need. It sounds like you got almost everything they need other than warmer temp and O2.

 

[mcoltezo]

if fermentation has not stopped or stalled and is in fact just slow, there is no need to add the other yeast packet. as long as those little critters are still alive they will multiply all by themselves as long as you give them what they need. It sounds like you got almost everything they need other than warmer temp and O2.

Hi Duster,

Thanks for the positive response. I'm worried that maybe I took out too many yeast, though, as I probably scooped out at least half or more of what was floating on the top. Still enough there?

Should we give it a stir? I saw that suggested to someone else.

Thanks,
Deanna

 

[Duster]

yep, If I can't filter them out your not gonna scoop them all out.
Give it a stir, watch your temp and relax, let us know what happens

 

[mcoltezo]

Alrighty ...we'll it a stir and wait and see.

One thing is that our temp isn't going to change at this time and it's below 70 as a rule so I presume we'll have a long fermentation time....? I'll wrap a blanket around it to keep in any heat.

If you have any other suggestions I'd welcome them.

Thanks again!
Cheers,
Deanna

 

[Duster]

a fermentation belt or a heating pad on low works well, just don't take it to far the other way

 

[mcoltezo]

Thanks. presently don't have either ...but will see what we can do.

I'll check in later after it's had more time.

Cheers

 

[jdrum]

if you think your to cool (I mean the must) try putting a 25 watt light near the fermenter and drape a blanket over over the whole shebang like a tent. stick a thermometer in there and lift up a corner ove the tent to adjust the temp up around 75 degrees.
i just had a batch of pear nectar go 35 days, and finished at 1.020 sg 10% abv
thats one batch i wont have to back sweeten.
jim

 

[mcoltezo]

Hi all,

Wow time has really flown by!

We transferred the liquid to a carboy and it has been there ever since. When we checked it a little while after the transfer, we saw a lovely sight: a golden-hued otherwise clear liquid all the way down to the usual light-coloured layer of sediment at the bottom. We covered it back up with an old dark coloured shirt and have done nothing more to the wine since. In a week or so we will be racking it again and checking SG. The last time we checked it indicated about 5% alcohol...if we were reading it right. (I don't have it handy for what the SG itself was).

Someone emailed a 'how's it going with the wine' a little while ago. Thanks for your interest! So far, we're happy. We'll let you know soon what the update is.

Cheers,
Deanna