Hi cpfan,
Thank you for answering. Please see your response to my previous note in bold (hopefully this works) followed by my comments:
I was going to ask about temperature but your original post said 65-75F. I figured that was OK. But now you're saying 68 or less. Cool end of the range so slow ferment is to be expected. But this is REAL SLOW.
Please let me explain about the temperature. It's winter here in VT and I'm fermenting the wine in our kitchen/dining area (a cool part of our warmest area of the house). The temperature of the air where the wine is fermenting ranges from about 65 degrees (at night and when we are away at work) to 75 degrees maximum when we are at home. When you factor in that we are sleeping or away at work most of the time, my guess is that the temp of the fermenting wine averages on the low end (i.e. 68 degrees or slightly less). I ferment beer in the same area and that fermenter has a built in thermometer that indicates that the temp in the fermenter never goes below 65 degrees and goes something above 70 degrees on weekends when we are home all day and the heat is set at a higher level.
BTW, in method 3 you are degassing the wine, not checking for fermentation. ANd Idon't know about methods 1 & 2.
WRT to the fermentation test #3 , my (unproven) theory is that if I degas the wine by shaking the carboy and remove enough gas that I can't get the wine to foam, if the foaming resumes the next day, fermentation is still going on. I suppose that there could be some co2 in the leas that might release into the wine and cause it to foam the next day, but this hasn't been my experiences with nonkit wines that I've made. I don't use the airlock activity as an indicator of fermentation as tempertature changes can cause one to be mislead- I always use vodka instead of water in the airlock in case the fermentation activity is low and the temp drops to the point where outside air is pulled into the carboy through the airlock.
Fermentation test #1 and 2 come mostly from my beermaking experience, and to some extent from my winemaking from concord grapes. Not saying I know they are true, but these are signs I use to determine when to move the carboy to the cold basement for clarification and bottling shortly thereafter.
I don't think my beermaking experience is especially applicable to winemaking because clarification is less important (IMHO) and I add sugar to the beer just before filling bottles to carbonate, so who's to say if fermentation was complete. I've used methods 1 and 2 for determining if fermentation is nearly complete in wine making (not from kits) and it seems to work. But for wines from my own grapes, I don't use bentonite and isinglass to clarify (I just use cold clearing and wait a really long time), so I was just hoping to learn more about other's experience with the winexpert kits at the end of the fermentation process- winexpert directions instruct 0.996 or less and stable over 2 days before starting clarification- I don't trust my hydrometer to be accuarate and I know my fermentation is slow. Also, final sg depends upon alchohol content and remaining sugar, so depending on the starting amount of sugar, I'm thinking that the final sg could vary quite a bit. My thought was that WE asks for a stable reading of SG to insure fermentation is nearly complete.
If this wine was mine, I would get the temperature up, and give it a good stir to get the sediment/yeast into the wine. And contact Winexpert on Monday.
Temperature of wine (actually beer fermenter next to it ) is reading 70 degrees right now. I sanitized my drill driven stirrer and degassed and mixed the sediment in the wine earlier today. Stirred until virtually no foam. Lots of foam now if I shake wine carboy.
I guess I'm finding myself a little confused, based on what I've said, do you think that there is a problem with this winekit? I know I'm fermenting on the low end of the temp range, that's intentional. It has been my experience that fermenting at temps that are too high can cause some really bad flavors. Lower temp fermenting surely slows things down, but I've never had low temps have a negative effect besides slowing things down. That's why I only winemake/brew during the cold weather months.