1st time cherry wine has maggots!

Phil · 2004-07-05T14:48:57+00:00

Long time beer brewer 1st time wine maker.So I picked some fresh cherries (10kg), mixed'em with sugar andboiling water, let it cool, put a 1/4 teaspoon of sulfate in it, letit sit 24 hours, then pitched some red wine yeast after rehydrating itper what it said on the package.Now 14 hours later I looked under the plastic lid I had sitting looslyover the plastic bucket. Fermentation has started but I also saw abunch of dead white little worms (magots?) about 3 to 4mm long allover the surface along with the whole cherries.What should I do? Should I skim off the top layer of maggots andcherries?Why didn't I see these maggots while it was sitting with the sufatestuff waiting for the yeast to be pitched? Were they always thereliving in the cherries, but when I pitched the yeast, the fermentstarted killing them off?Please help me out guys and girls.I'm pretty down. My very 1st attempt at wine and I get maggots? Mygod I'm scarred to eat cherries now.

Phil 21 years ago

It's funny what you say about worms 'oozing' out of the straining bag. I didn't squeeze mine hardly at all for the reason you mentioned. I was scarred that I'd be squeezing magots (or what ever the hell they were) into the juice.

Anyway this is my first wine and it's been a month since I pitched the yeast and it's fricking still fermenting like crazy! I can't figure this out. If I had beer at this temp. (70°f) it would be done in 3 to

4 days. Is this normal? I have not taken a gravity sample since the sqeeze/filter day, as I heard that you risk oxidation by popping of the airlock and bung.

I still haven't decided how I'm gonna top off at the next transfer. I was thinking of just buying a couple of liters of weissherbst/rose and dumping that in there. My theory is that this wine is fairly neuteral and won't have that much effect on the final product. I have about 23 to 24 liters of wine FWIW.

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Daniel_B 21 years ago

I use a heating coil, so I ferment both my wines and beers at a higher temp. I would imagine your specific gravity has dropped significantly since you started, so you'll want to rack it off the sediment and give your straining bag a final squeeze and dispose the pulp ASAP to avoid any off-flavouring. Your starting SG should have been up around 1.090, and after about a week you should have been down to around 1.030, which is when this racking should have happened. It can take another few weeks to finally ferment down. I'd guess you're fairly close to final already.

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Phil 21 years ago

I already did this after a week. The gravity was 1.094 or so and after a week it was 1.050. At that point (one week) I did what you said to do. But fermentation started up again like crazy. Foam on top, airlock going crazy. It's been in this secondary for about 3 weeks. It's been 4 weeks since the initial primary. Primary was done in a platic bucket. Secondary is being done in a glass balloon with lots of head space. I'm not worried about oxydation as the air lock is plopping every second and a half.

I guess I'll just forget about it for at least 2 more weeks.

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