kaluba said:
im so patient i havent even started notuntil i have all the facts. I dont come home every day so i want to make sure i have the ideal time frame to insure a good quality wine. These questions
are to make sure I can give them enough time to do what they must<
For what it's worth, I make 1 gallon batches, too - the last one was 48 hours from pitching the yeast in the primary bucket to moving it to the secondary glass jug ! SG started at 1.085, transfered it to the secondary at 1.008. That was pretty fast....
I had used a 3/4 of a packet of EC-1118 yeast and had made a yeast starter. Since the packet is good for 1 to 5 gallons, it's probably that if it's good enough to do 5 gallons in the "usually suggested time frame" it's a lot faster for nearly that same amount of yeast to gobble up only 1/5th the amount of sugar. That's my theory at least.
The batch before this one I had used 1/4 of that same packet of yeast, and it was all of 5 days in the bucket before I transfered to the secondary.
The one before that, it was again a whole packet and took all of 3 days to get the SG down to where it should be transfered.
You might try a whole packet if you can be home the next couple days and get it into the gallon before you "aren't home" again, or if it's going to be say, 5 days, use just a tsp of the yeast from the packet.
If you don't make a yeast starter (ie rehydrate the yeast in a jar of sugar water and get it going before you add it to your must), you might buy yourself another day's grace period while the yeast struggles to get going.
On the other hand, you did say "good quality wine" and I'm not sure if any of mine are "good quality" since I'm a newbie here too so
... and I also have underfloor heat where I set my fermenting bucket ... so your mileage, your yeast, and your wine's time from the bucket to the jug may vary!!