I'm embarrassed to be asking this question, because I'm a fairly experienced winemaker. My question concerns a persistent primary fermentation, but the SG is not dropping.
A couple of months ago, I received a batch of botrytized juice with a brix level of 35. I'm trying to ferment it to the point that the yeast dies, and I'll be left with some residual sugar. My problem is that it keeps bubbling away (vigorously), but the SG hasn't dropped at all in the last 3 weeks. It's stuck at 1.026.
I've put in a lot of lysozyme, because I don't want MLF. Also, the bubbles "look like" a primary fermentation. There's been a bit of temperature change (I warmed it up a bit up to about 76 degrees) because I wanted to speed things up, but I can't imagine that this is all CO2 coming out of solution.
The yeast that I originally used died when the SG was still in the
1.050 range. That left me with too much residual sugar, so I re- inoculated with Premier Cuvee, which has an alcoholic tolerance of 18 percent. I realize that the Premier Cuvee might ferment all the way down to 0, but that's ok...I can always add back some sugar and be left with a very potent wine. At this point, I just want things to stop.My alternative is to chill the wine, stop the fermentation, then filter and hit it with sorbate...but frankly, my filtration is never COMPLETELY sterile, and I don't like sorbate.
Any thoughts? This is baffling me. I can understand that the yeast is still doing it's thing. I just don't understand why the SG isn't dropping.
Lee