Help, fermentation stopped? Or finished?

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WeavingGryphon

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Help, fermentation stopped? Or finished?
« on: May 21, 2020, 10:42 »
I'm making 2 parsnip and one Raspberry wine, we filtered the parsnips into our 2 demijohns and the raspberry into a "demibucket" with a new style airlock all filtered and racked off on the same day. One parsnip and the raspberry have stopped bubbling.

Parsnip
The Demijohn that continued to ferment, we'd added ginger, raisins and cinnamon to the demijohn so it has plenty to eat and is still bubbling merrily to itself. The stalled parsnip demijohn we added 100ml cooled, boiled water, 100g chopped raisins, 1tsp nutrient and 1tsp yeast last night. It's now blooping slowly so we think it's okay. We did something right.

The raspberry, we need to most help with.
We're not sure if it's filling the space under the lid as it does seem to be bulging up, but not by much. We pressed down on it on two occasions and air came out of the airlock. But the first time it sucked the water out of the airlock and into the container.
It's "blooped" only once that we've seen and Husband and I are watching, it's quite relaxing. We accidentally (sleep problems) added the sugar in one go at the start and it had a great primary fermentation, but had slowed down when we "racked" it. We filtered, but did squeeze the bag to get more liquid through. Which could be our problem.

What do we do?

Do we test it with the hydrometer as it was sweet several days ago? Rack it off into the new to us demijohn-it's about due? Do we feed it? Add more yeast? Add more yeast sugar and nutrient?
https://www.lowcostliving.co.uk/home-brewing/raspberry-wine-recipe/

We got 2 more demijohns so that will negate the distended lid. But I doubt that is a factor. Someone told us after they had the money that they were selling their Husbands because they didn't think he'd get back into it.

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Growster...

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Re: Help, fermentation stopped? Or finished?
« Reply #1 on: May 21, 2020, 14:45 »
If the fruit is still forming a crust, Weavers, then you don't need to worry too much.

I'd wait a while and see what occurs, at the worst, it could have just over-reached the yeast, which is highly unlikely with the better sort of yeast you get nowadays, or at best, it's taking it's time - I think Rasp wine takes ages anyway!

Always check with  a hydrometer before you start worrying too much - fruit - and veg, wines can be pretty fickle sometimes, so hang in there for a while...

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WeavingGryphon

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Re: Help, fermentation stopped? Or finished?
« Reply #2 on: May 21, 2020, 21:05 »
If the fruit is still forming a crust, Weavers, then you don't need to worry too much.

I'd wait a while and see what occurs, at the worst, it could have just over-reached the yeast, which is highly unlikely with the better sort of yeast you get nowadays, or at best, it's taking it's time - I think Rasp wine takes ages anyway!

Always check with  a hydrometer before you start worrying too much - fruit - and veg, wines can be pretty fickle sometimes, so hang in there for a while...

What do you mean by the fruit forming a crust? We took the fruit out of the raspberry so it hasn't formed a crust.
Did I destroy things by squeezing the filtering bag?

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Growster...

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Re: Help, fermentation stopped? Or finished?
« Reply #3 on: May 22, 2020, 07:36 »
It's not a problem, just that when you're fermenting on the pulp, there is a crust which forms on the top, from everything getting going!

Some fruits don't need to be fermented too long on the pulp, as stones, pips, skin etc., can alter the flavour, but if you've squeezed it all, you should be just fine!

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WeavingGryphon

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Re: Help, fermentation stopped? Or finished?
« Reply #4 on: May 23, 2020, 08:30 »
Update, day 5 yesterday so we siphoned and filtered (Oooh, aren't we fancy?) the raspberry and redcurrant.

There was some white blobs on the surface and a lot of chalky sludge at the bottom of the raspberry, a small amount got into the demijohn. which we need to add some boiled and cooled water to. But it started bubbling away rather well and has slowed now, but is still bubbling. We had a taste of the drop on the edge of the bucket and it was pure alcohol. But it's not vinegar and not sweet.
Do the white blobs on the surface mean it's going mouldy?

Can you advise me on the currant wine. We had more than a demijohn worth in the bucket, we don't know why and we filled a demijohn and left the liquid we couldn't fit in the fermenting bucket with the fruit.
It's half full. A lot of the berries were still ruby and intact so we thought well there's still yummyness still in there for the yeast to eat. So I gave them a good squashing and put an airlock on the container and it isn't bubbling, it's blooping. I've had to refill the airlock a few times. Clearly there's plenty to be eating for the yeast.

Should we leave the berries in the bucket until fermenting subsides and then mix both the liquid in the bucket and demijohn togther into a bigger bucket to ferment together? Or should we give it until Sunday and then filter and combine the two? Is it bad to mix primary and secondary fermentation together? With a currant wine your not meant to leave it sitting for days or it can get bitter which was why we were thinking Sunday. The liquid in the demijohn is having a good bubble to itself so secondary fermentation is underway.

Modify to add. It's very windy, it's not as bad now as it was last night and it's gusting 44 miles an hour, it was 2100 (9pm) and we weren't going to play around with a bucket lid and a hand tool  which is why it was left in the small bucket.
« Last Edit: May 23, 2020, 08:49 by WeavingGryphon »



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