While bringing my Syrah up to room temperature, It had already started to ferment itself. Not realizing what this was I took a hydrometer reading and saw that it was low for pitching yeast, so I added sugar to bring the SG up to 1.090. The Must started to ferment, but slowly. It has now been one week and it stopped fermenting now at 1.030. I’ve warmed to Must, I repitched with Premier Cuvee & and even tried to make a Restarter Yeast. Did I ruin this batch , or is there something I can do to finish it off?
Syrah fermenting help, Please
- Thread starter DHall
- Start date
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It's not ruined, no worries. A couple of questions:
-When did you repitch?
-Has the gravity been the same for three days in a row?
-What temperature is the must?
-Do you know the pH?
For starters you could add yeast nutrient and give the must a good stir to see if that helps.
What was the first reading you took? Your Alcohol level could already be too high for yeast to live in.
Mike
Mike
-I repitched Friday morning
-it has been 1.034, 1.032 and now 1.030 3 days in a row
-Must temperature is 72 degrees
-I could never get my ph tester to calibrate correctly, so no I don't know the PH. Its a juice bucket I figured it was pre set.
Thanks for the help.
-it has been 1.034, 1.032 and now 1.030 3 days in a row
-Must temperature is 72 degrees
-I could never get my ph tester to calibrate correctly, so no I don't know the PH. Its a juice bucket I figured it was pre set.
Thanks for the help.
@kraffty the OG was 1.90 and the current SG is 1.030 so that is 10.5% ABV. Should be fine.
@DHall The temperature is fine. First try adding nutrients and stirring it up from the bottom to re-suspend the yeast.
If you can check pH, that would be good to know, because it is possible that it's making the yeast have a hard time fermenting. Some buckets are in good ranges, but not all. Here is a link to how to recalibrate: http://hannainst.com/knowledge-base#calibratephmeter I have to do the same thing as my meter is reading that the pH is 14, which is not possible!
If those don't work, I would pitch EC-1118, which is a yeast designed to ferment stalled batches.
@DHall The temperature is fine. First try adding nutrients and stirring it up from the bottom to re-suspend the yeast.
If you can check pH, that would be good to know, because it is possible that it's making the yeast have a hard time fermenting. Some buckets are in good ranges, but not all. Here is a link to how to recalibrate: http://hannainst.com/knowledge-base#calibratephmeter I have to do the same thing as my meter is reading that the pH is 14, which is not possible!
If those don't work, I would pitch EC-1118, which is a yeast designed to ferment stalled batches.
@heatherd I read the post differently, it seems like he took the SG UP to 1.09 because he took the first reading at 1.058 and thought that was too low to start fermenting. Assuming the bucket came in at about 1.085 before fermenting the added sugars would make his must equal to about 1.144 starting SG. Setting at 1.03 now means he's already close to 15% alcohol.
Maybe someone could double check my math but I think he's got a strong sweet wine right now.
Mike
Maybe someone could double check my math but I think he's got a strong sweet wine right now.
Mike
Boatboy24
No longer a newbie, but still clueless.
He started with an SG of 1.058 and added sugar to get to the 1.090. With a beginning SG of 1.058, I would assume his wine was already ~40% fermented.
If the true starting SG were 1.098, the wine went to 1.058, then was chapitalized back to 1.090, you'd have an effective starting SG of roughly 1.130 (not accounting for the changes in volume, which I think are probably minimal). Fermenting that wine down to 0.996 would yield something in the neighborhood of 17.5% ABV - nearing Port territory. That's assuming the yeast don't die of alcohol poisoning first. EC-1118, as you mentioned, should be able to finish it out, but you'd have rocket fuel. Might want to consider fortifying with brandy and bottling it as a port at that point.
