A strange ferment

Ray, I have noticed over the past couple of years, that some of the frozen concentrates do get stuck and don't ferment to dry. Why, I don't know, but I have not had a stuck ferment when I have added yeast nutrient to the batch before adding the yeast. I'm not familiar with Jack's recipe, so does it call for yeast nutrient? Darlene

Yes, 1 tsp per gal. His recipe is at

Ray

Ray, when making wines from frozed juice or kit wines, you might consider carying over the lees when you rack the first time and possibly every time

- until ready to bottle and then rack off the lees.

With concentrated juice there are no organic particles that could possible cause H2S problems and therefore the lees are probably sweet and will only help the wine. You may have thrown out whatever small ammount of nutrients were in the wine when you racked. In your subsequent rackings and adding lees, it took awhile for the nutrients in the lees you added to help what few yeast cells were left.

My method is after the initial racking off the gross lees - even wine with fresh grapes - in subsequent rackings, if the lees smell sweet and no bad orders - I include them and stir them back into the wine. My initial racking - when making wine from fresh grapes - is several hours after I press. By that time most of the "heavies" have settled out.

I do not understand why so many people rack, rack and then rack some more - especially in kit wines.

Thanks Paul. Jack made some simular sugestions backe when I first had problems. He thought I may have lost all the yeast. But I could not get any going in it again. Maybe I did lose all the nutrient.

Ray

Ray, I reread your post and I checked my notes. Another thing I do when using the frozen concentrates, is to ferment in a glass carboy with a wide top, covered in plastic. I stir 2 tx a day, just like a batch using fruit. I rack when it hits 1.000 or below, which is usually in 4-6 days, then I transfer to a glass carboy with a bung and airlock. This is totally different method than when I started 4 years ago. Good-luck. Darlene

Ray, I am green as a gourd at this new hobby and in my first batch of Muscadine wine the primary ferment went okay, added yeast and got a less than moderate ferment. After a week I transferred it to the secondary carboys and put an air lock on it. This was on December 2nd (south GA) 2 years ago and probably too chilly.

It fermented steadily, but VERY slowly until after Thanksgiving last year, almost a year. I added fresh yeast on one occasion shortly after transferring to the secondary to try to get it going. No luck. I racked it a couple of times to get if off the sediment and it cleared very well and finally fermented dry. I bottled it and a couple of months later tried it. Smelled great. Tasted like...well you know, wine... but different. It might have been okay in a year or two, or ten, or it might have poisoned me. With no experience for comparison purposes I opted to pour 48 bottles down the drain, (insert sound of weeping).

There are certainly occasions when strange things happen in the wine making world. It is something like 10 years ago when I was making mainly "country wines" and regularly made up a 5 gallon batch of wine each year -- made from white grape juice/Apple juice/orange juice as bought from the supermarket shelves. Not to worry about the recipe.Once fermentation was finished ( in 5 gallon (imp) polyethylene) I would transfer to 1 gallon (imp) to let it mature on for about 3/4 months ready for summer BBQ drinking.

Anyway on this occasion the batch I made just tasted fairly awful but being a thrifty ( i.e. mean) wine maker I put the 5 x 1 gallon carboys at the back of my bulk aging room and gently forgot about them. It was about 18 months later in the middle of winter when I happened to be doing a general tidy around when I lifted up the 5 carboy and put them on my fermenting shelves. Now this room was unheated and the temperature fell to very close to freezing in there when it was cold outside. The thing that caught my eye was that there was a tiny ring of v small bubbles around the internal circumference of 4 of the 5 carboys -- just a single width of single bubbles. I just thought I had disturbed to wine in moving them. Anyway to try and keep it short they sat through that winter and a second year and the whole time just that single line of bubbles. If I had an hour to waste I could actually catch a bubble arising through the wine. Now I was making about 150 gallons (imp) a year at that time -- being in a

4 year convalescent period after major surgery-- and since the stuff in the carboy has tasted so 'orrible I just let them sit there. and it spent a good 2 years in the carboy -- and all the time had this extremely slow fermentation going on. I remember commenting about it to Jack Keller at the time. I have no idea of what was happening and my records were minimal at the time but the wine when I eventually breached the seal on the first carboy was quite excellent and totally different in character to the normal summer plonk produced by that recipe. 4 out of the 5 carboys were like that -- the 5th one I used for cooking!!!! I have never experienced anything like it before or since. This wine making thingy is so, thrilling, frustrating, annoying, pleasurable -- the worst thing is when you are drinking the last bottle of a batch that you made years before, which has improved, month by month, year by year, and you think --- why didn't I make 2'ce as much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is never repeatable! Sorry for the long post

Interesting, Ray.

I have been trying gallon batches of many different welch's concentrates. To learn and to see what is worth the efforts of a larger batch..

For example, I just bottled white grape raspberry, fermented down to

1.011, stabilized, and tastes marvelous. A Strawberry Raspberry, ferment down to 1.02 and stopped, so I stabilized anyway, this is rougher, going to let this sit in bottle a while longer.

A week later, I tried white grape (niagara frozen concentrate), white grape peach (juice, not concentrate), and strawberry kiwi (juicy juice brand, not concentrate). The straw-kiwi fermented out fast, down to .995 in week and a half, that is bottled already and resting. The niagara concentrate stuck at 1.045. It's clearing, but still high at

1.045. the white grape peach is even worse at 1.065. They all started out at about1.090 and at most 1.100 s.g. I used Jack's recipe and his method, sort of along the lines of the way Dar does it, as she has quite a bit of experience doing one gallon batches. they are still sitting there, but I'm using old carlo rossi bottles as primary and secondary, so they are a little tough to stir.

In light of that, I just tried another batch of Welch's niagara, three gallon this time, tripled jacks recipe, used lalvin 1118, and in 5 days it went from 1.092 down to 1.001. I stirred for the last time tonight, and will rack to secondary tomorrow.

What I don't understand is that for this batch, it fermented strong and continuous and I stirred twice daily. I also am using a large plastic primary for this batch. The failed batch above was stirred to the best of my ability, fermented more than strong, even vigorously for 3 days, then stopped very quickly. Same with the WG-Peach.

I think my stucks are just losses and will try again later.

I also have a gallon batch of welches tropical passion (100% juice of apple, grape, orange, passion, and pineapple) This started 5 days ago high at 1.110, now is down to 1.020 and still going, will probably get to rack in a day or two, still stirring twice daily.

I have recently got wild berry concentrate (apple, grape, cherry, raspberry) and will try that when my primaries come available, one gallon, more if I like.

I intend on making a 5 gal batch of the white grape rasp as soon as I get the concentrate. This stuff was good.

I may have to pick up a few cans of concord, just to try of course, and let you know how that goes.

Greg

Hoss, I wouldn't call them losses. I still bottled my batches which stuck. I guess I would let them finish, stabilize, and just drink them sooner than the other batches, because they won't have the alcohol level for good aging. Look at them as a bunch of wine coolers.... Darlene

I second the motion; I'm beginning to see that most of my probs come from having no yeast nutrients added.

Grape/Raspberry.