Stuck fermentation of chilean juice

[topher18]

First post here -- long and thorough plea for help!

I bought a bucket of Luvabella Chilean Chardonnay this spring to try something new. (I've made five kit wines so far after getting started with the hobby around the first of the year.) I have a stubbornly stuck fermentation that I'm about ready to give up on. I'm hoping someone has an idea or two.

I added pectic enzyme and yeast nutrient to the juice at the recommendation of the shop where I got the juice. I stirred it up and racked the juice to my primary fermenter because I didn't like the looks of the bucket the juice came in. Starting SG was 1.086. I warmed the juice with a brewing belt.

Primary fermentation went just fine. SG was 1.010 after a few days with the belt applied. (Temperature was probably just north of 80*F - off the scale of my stick-on thermometer.) I racked to carboy for secondary and moved the belt to the carboy.

I saw occasional bubbles in the airlock for a couple days, then no activity. I tested after a week and SG was 1.008. I let it go another week and was still at 1.008.

I asked the wine supply shop for advice and was told to make a starter of water and sugar with a packet of 1116 yeast to fill a wine bottle about half full and put on airlock on it. I waited about a day until a good froth was present and dumped the starter into the carboy. This boosted my SG to 1.010. I saw a little bit of activity the next day but that stopped too.

The SG remains stuck at 1.008 for the past three weeks. I took the brew belt off a couple weeks ago.

I tried creating a wine-based starter with instructions on the EC Kraus website: a pint or so of the stuck wine, a cup of water, a few tbsp of sugar, a packet of 1118 yeast and I threw in some yeast energizer. This mixture started to bubble in a few hours and then stopped. It has been sitting for a week with no signs of life. I tried throwing more sugar into it and I tried warming it. no luck. I haven't bothered adding this starter to the carboy.

It seems like something in the wine is killing the yeast since even my second starter failed. What else can I try before dumping the batch?

 

[sour_grapes]

Wow, sounds like you were doing everything right, but no joy on the fermentation.

How does it taste? Do you have a pH meter or strips, by chance? Certainly, I wouldn't dump it yet -- at 1.010 it may even be drinkable, if worst comes to worst.

 

[salcoco]

your idea for a starter was correct but the procedure thereafter needs to be altered. build a starter as before with water sugar and yeast say about 1 liter. once fermentation has started add one liter of wine, once fermentation has restarted add 2 liters of wine, fermentation restarts add two liter, continue with this process doubling the amount of wine added until all of the wine is fermenting.

Alternate get some brandy and perform some bench trials. adding alcohol to offset the residual sugar can also give you a viable wine. do this only after the wine has cleared and k meta and sorbate have been added.

 

[MrKevin]

The only thing I would add to Salcoco's advice is keep your temp around 75f and watch the temp variation between the starter and stuck wine. It could be possible that " north of 80" stressed the yeast to much and the ph shock between your starter and the juice/wine was to much.

 

[JohnT]

Agree with all that has been said so far, but I need to ask....

Have you calibrated you hydrometer? Are you sure that you are at 1.008?

Even if you never get the yeast started again, I would hold off on dumping it. 1.008 translates to just around 2% residual sugar. Could still be good.

 

[DoctorCAD]

Brew belt and over 80 degrees on a white seems lika a bad idea to me. I always thought whites should be cool fermrnted???

 

[JohnT]

Brew belt and over 80 degrees on a white seems lika a bad idea to me. I always thought whites should be cool fermrnted???

It all depends on the variety of white and the flavor profiles you are going against.

 

[topher18]

I have indeed checked my hydrometer against room temperature water and it's within 0.001.

Thanks to everyone for the helpful hints on using the starter. I will try mixing another one and doing the gradual additions.

It doesn't really taste very good at this point, but I don't have enough of these types of problems and their solutions under my belt to know if that is because of the CO2 or sediments or if there is something wrong with the wine. If I can't get the fermentation restarted with a third starter, I'll stabilize and clarify the batch and see what I get. Maybe use a little oak to try to smooth it out.

 

[kevinlfifer]

I had a similar problem with my Bella Cab Sav, it stuck at 1.004. It took 5 starters to get it going again. The final starter was the reverse of SP. I saved the culture form a batch of SP. I "rinsed" it with dilute sugar water to rmove some of the lemon flavor, added nutreint and more sugar, then added the entire slurry to the Cab Sav, It worked!!!

It is still fermenting and now below 1.000. It may take a month to get there. Keep it under air lock and be patient.

 

[topher18]

Got it restarted

I took a combination of advice from all of you and got the fermentation restarted a few days ago. I created another yeast/sugar starter using 1118 and a couple cups of water heated to the temperature shown on the yeast packet for rehydration. I used enough sugar to get the starter to SG of 1.080. I let it bubble for a day and it looked like it was slowing down. I threw in a second packet of 1118 and saw it perk up.

After a couple hours, I poured the starter into a clean carboy and added a gallon of the stuck wine. I sloshed it around a little and watched for airlock activity. It got going slowly but surely. I added a second gallon that evening, and a third the next morning. The second evening I added the rest. Three days later it's still bubbling away.

Thanks to all of you for your help!

 

[cintipam]

Interesting to know. My Bella Cab Sauv was the only stuck fermentation I've had so far. I also got it going again with 1118 and a starter, but it took 2 tries. It's done now, and even young I can tell it will be great. Got it with some Hungarian oak cubes now to start layering flavors.

Pam in cinti

 

[GeoS]

Check your pH, i shoot for around 3.2 pre ferment. A too low pH the high acid content can make the yeast very unhappy. The EC 1118 is a very hardy yeast and could most likely ferment a rock so it is great for re starting a stuck fermentation. However, a pH above 3.2 could leave the must susceptible to bacteria. This is why the pH is so important.