Sugar wine stalled

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Might need nutrient. Is the must warm? Getting it up to 75 degrees or so can helpit restart. If it has been fermenting, you could have enough alcohol in there the yeast has died off. Might need a good stir to get some oxygen in there. Probably could use a bit more information, starting s.g. how long it has been fermenting, s.g. at this time. Good luck with it, Arne.
 
what is your starting sg and what is it now?
 
1.090 starting gravity
1.060 gravity now.
 

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So it's straight sugar water? That's going to taste nasty. At any rate, there are no nutrients to be gotten by the yeast from fruit, since there is none, so I'm betting that you need nutrients for your yeast in a big way. Fermaid K at it's max recommended dose would be what I would do in your shoes..................
 
Experiment and to use for topping off the head space in carboys that I'm going to clarify. I've seen others do the same in the forum but I never really asked how to make it. I watched a couple other do this on Youtube. it seemed easy enough and I figured if it was that easy to make, why not?

I do have some local frozen cherries that I could put into it. Likely too late to add it to the solution. It's been going for five days. I'd have soak them in Camden tablets for a night and take another 24 hours before I added them.

I do have DAP but I've gotten conflicted opinions on using this. But since this is a sugar wine and I'm not going to drink this straight. I'm using it as a way to not use H2O in my wine.
 
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A few thoughts.

The yeast will stop fermenting when there is no food or there is a hostile environment (high alcohol, too hot, too cold, pH, competition and others). Your must is 3.5% alcohol, so it is not a hostile environment, so chances are it ran out of nutrient and I'm thinking the pH is really high. What I would do is add tartaric acid to get the pH around 3.3, add the proper amount of nutrient and try restarting.

Say this sugar wine did ferment to completion. The result would be a pretty tasteless (at best) 87% water, 13% alcohol solution. Topping with this will still water the taste of the other wine down. I would look for a similar or complementary commercial wine to top with.
 
A few thoughts.

The yeast will stop fermenting when there is no food or there is a hostile environment (high alcohol, too hot, too cold, pH, competition and others). Your must is 3.5% alcohol, so it is not a hostile environment, so chances are it ran out of nutrient and I'm thinking the pH is really high. What I would do is add tartaric acid to get the pH around 3.3, add the proper amount of nutrient and try restarting.

Say this sugar wine did ferment to completion. The result would be a pretty tasteless (at best) 87% water, 13% alcohol solution. Topping with this will still water the taste of the other wine down. I would look for a similar or complementary commercial wine to top with.

I saw it on another site and thought it was a great alternative to adding H2O so I thought I'd try it. It wasn't a big investment so I'm not torn up about it. I just could have actually used some fruit on this and done another wine.

I still wonder if I can revive this and save it by adding some sweet cherries to this.
 
I don't make a lot of wine from fruit, other than grapes, so I may be off. However, even when all of the must being fermented is 100% the juice of the fruit and I have all the berries skin and pulp in the must, I still have to add nutrient to allow for a happy and complete ferment. I would expect that you would have to add a whole lot of cherries to provide enough nutrient for a carboy of sugar water to ferment.

I would aciduate the must to 3.3 pH and add 1 gram per gallon of DAP. I would take some of this aciduated must with nutrient and make a good size starter (one liter). Once the starter is going strong, then add back to the carboy.
 
Maybe add a banana or two. This would give the yeast some to eat and not create any type of flavor.
 
The DAP didn't work. I'm going to check it this evening and dump it if it's still not going.
 
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Good advice has been given by others above. When you do this type of fermentation, you should be using a complex yeast nutrient. The fermentation is missing all of the critical components including yeast extract, minerals, and vitamins.
 
With respect, I say scrap the whole thing. Topping with alcohol water to not water down was already flawed. you’ll still be watering it down- just keeping the abv in tact. And even if you added acid you’d still watering down flavor.
Not that it’s a huge deal/ but sounded like it was a concern of yours and the reason for the experiment.
Initially a quick easy fun idea now sounds like a lot of work and testing. To get the result you really want you’d probably have to make a cheap batch of something similar to what you make and use specifically for topping. Or do what I do— make enough wine and eventually you’ll get a less than spectacular batch- and set that aside for all the topping :)
 
I have friends who make this stuff for the purpose of distilling off the alcohol to make homemade spirits. Do what they do - throw in a kg of sultanas. But make sure you sanitize them with boiling water over first. Then let them cool before adding it to your carboy.
 
Just make a batch of Welches wine for topping off. Works great and doesnt change the ABV or flavor profile.

Just dont drink it...:)
 
Just thinking out loud.
Why not bump sg. up a bit in the begining, if diluting alcohol is your concern, adding a bit of water will bring it back to the target.
Or make a larger starting batch and top off with the smaller bottle of the same batch at about the same progress. This option allows for more progress tasting.
 
It was more an experiment to make this sugar wine. I thought that it would be a fun little project and I'd have something that I could use for other things as well. I had nothing going at the time and just wanted to be making something.

The DAP worked out. So I'm going to try give it some everyday until it's done. Half as much, so 1.5 teaspoons at night.
 
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Lol edit your post and I look like a rambling fool.
Welcome to the forum.
Expect many of you questions to be answered with more questions.
What is your objection to using water.
 

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