three slow ferments?

With just one of these, I'd dismiss it as an aberration, bad data, or a bad ingredient. But three at once?

Last weekend, I'd planned on racking an estate series Sauv Blaunc from wine merchant (? It's brewking's wine brand). It still had a rather thick layer on top (uhm, it's not a kraussen; that's beer. What do I call it), and had clearly not finished fermenting.

I put it up again this week, and after nearly two weeks, it still has a thin layer of foam. The gravity was 1.008 this morning.

I also started two new low-end kits from the same brand last weekend, a zin and a white zin. THis morning, after 6 days or so, there were about

1.030 and 1.020.

The first floor, where they sit in the hall, is 68F by day and drops as low as 50F at night.

Generally, I've seen full fermentation, or at the very least a drop to about 1.000, in a week.

All of them came from leisure-time.com.

Does this sound like something's goign on, or is this within normal quirky behavior?

hawk

Reply to
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins
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If it's still fermenting don't worry. If it _stops_ and the S.G. is where it is now, then you can start worrying.

Likely, the slow fermentation is because of the cool temperature. That's actually a good thing. Faster fermentations burn out the fruit in white wines.

Just curious: Did you use the same yeast in all three? What strain, and how fresh was it?

Tom S

Reply to
Tom S

They all still seem to be going.

However, it's been *at least* that cold all winter, and I haven't had this with the others (though some primaries haven't even been looked at for two weeks, and actviity is hard to monitor with the gasket airlocks built into the lids.

The heater temperatures have been the same, but it takes longer to drop this time of year and doesn't always go all the way down.

I'd been wondering about that. Lower temperatures are desirable for beer fermentations, but that's really for off-flavors. I haven't been able to find similar information for wine.

I used the packs that came with the kits. I know that the two zins had different strains, one was red star dry wine yeast, iirc. I don't remember what went into the sauv blanc, abut I suspect it was something else since it was the high-end kit.

I assume they were all reasonably fresh--leisure-time seems to turn over inventory fairly quickly.

thanks

hawk

Reply to
hawk

Different strains have differing activities. Some strains are very slow (Epernay II e.g.) and others are very vigorous (Pasteur Red e.g.). Take a look at this page for more info:

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Basically, it sounds like you don't actually know what you got with the kit. That could easily explain the slow fermentations.

Tom S

Reply to
Tom S

gee, i've been letting grape juice ferment itself for over a year on one pack of yeast and have yet to have any problems with it, yet you have, evidently, all sorts of problems.

i submit you are working to hard at it.

Reply to
billb

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