Fermentation question

If a wine ferments dry to .992 and I wanted to sweeten it up a bit but for whatever reason did not sorbate to prevent refermentation what is likely to happen?

If fermentation starts again is the wine ruined,...degraded? Or could this process be done over a long period of time until eventually the yeast was entirely used up and residual sugar would be present to finish off dry?

Does fermentation starting back up cause any problems other than a longer process?

John F

Reply to
tripkings
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If you sweeten the wine without stabilizing it, and then bottle it; you could end up with bottle bombs if fermentation starts again. This happened with one of my batches - I had Champaign-like wine. I was lucky, I had a small mess (only 2 bottles popped at the bottom of my wine rack), and realized rather quickly what had happened to prevent a bigger mess. I've heard of many horror stories on this site from wine starting to ferment again in the bottles. If you don't use the wine stabilizer (sorbate), and there is yeast left in the wine it will start to ferment again if you add sweetener. I wouldn't classify the wine as ruined, it will just start fermenting again and you would have a slightly higher alcohol content, and the wine will take longer to ferment to dry. I stabilize all my wine now especially when I want to sweeten the wine a bit. It doesn't take cleaning up popped wine bottles (with wine all over the place)once before deciding to never want to do that again. Others may like living on the wild side...but not me. Darlene

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Reply to
Dar V

It depends on how you store it. If you can keep it in a refrigerator it may not explode, but I can't gaurantee that.

Sweet wines have 3 options.

Sorbate, which is what most homewinemakers do.

Sterile filtering; most commercial winemakers do this but it's almost imopossible to gaurantee sterility for the home winemaker.

Pasteurization.

As Dar mentioned you if you have enough sugar and the yeast can consume it the bottles will be exposed to an internal pressure that may cause them to explode. When you ferment you not only create alcohol, you create CO2 gas. If that is sealed in a bottle, well... you may get a nice fizz if it's not much pressure, or you may get explosions if it's too much pressure.

Joe

Reply to
Joe Sallustio

Yes, you could keep adding sugar until fermentation comes to a halt. But then the alcohol level would be so high approx 16 - 17% that the nature of the wine would have changed. If the acid levels are high and the alcohol levels are around 13%, you might get away with the addition of sodium metabisulphate, but only to a level that you just detect it. Safer to add sorbate, the amounts required are miniscule. I've had situations where a wine has been stable in bulk for a long time, but as soon as I bottle it, the process somehow encourages re fermentation. In my strawberry wine, I sterile filter and add small amounts of sorbate.

Reply to
wayne

"If you sweeten the wine without stabilizing it, and then bottle it; you could end up with bottle bombs if fermentation starts again."

What if you sweeten and age for another 6-8 weeks could fermentation stay "stalled" for that long and not show up until bottling?

BTW I'm going to stabilize before sweetening to avoid any blow ups I'm just trying to learn more about what's going on with these wines.

John F

Reply to
tripkings

I have seen a fermentation "stall" for four months, then resume. I have read about much longer stuck fermentations.

If you sweeten, fermentation starts again, and you allow it to ferment out the result will be higher alcohol content. It will also change the ballance of the wine.

If your goal is to sweeten the wine then you should stabilize it with sorbate. Also, my LHBS sells "wine conditioner" which is a non-fermentable sweetener. I haven't tried it without sorbate, though.

Truitt

Reply to
Truitt Smith

There is an old saying in the wine industry........The easiest way to start a "stuck" fermentation is to bottle the wine.

Lum Del Mar, California, USA

Reply to
Lum

Thanks for the input everybody.

I tasted a thieved sample sweetened up a bit to see how it would be and decided for sure I want to sweeten this wine so I did the sorbate.

John F

Reply to
tripkings

Isn't that the truth. lol Darlene

Reply to
Dar V

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