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[Marble-eye]

Anybody suffering with stuck fermentations, I've had a couple now.

I am just wondering if the original gravity is too high and killing the yeast off. My of was 25 brix which is 1.106, I'm sure you guys have had a higher starting og. It seems to stick at about 15 brix (1.032) abv 9%.

Banged some more yeast into the fermentation today and gave it another stir, will see what happens

 

[stuhan]

On 1/11/2022 at 6:04 PM, Marble-eye said:

Anybody suffering with stuck fermentations, I've had a couple now.

I am just wondering if the original gravity is too high and killing the yeast off. My of was 25 brix which is 1.106, I'm sure you guys have had a higher starting og. It seems to stick at about 15 brix (1.032) abv 9%.

Banged some more yeast into the fermentation today and gave it another stir, will see what happens

Yep had a few do that,and others go all the way to dry in 5-7 days, only thing i found was this seems to happen when you add all the sugar in one go, now i add the sugar in stages, i think all at once stress's the yeast, also after racking fermentation can stop so i don't rack until its finished fermenting completly.

[WilliamG]

Did both Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc from Jamago's concentrate, both times 2 litres of juice and 6 litres of water, no sugar, Lalvin 1118 yeast.

Both of them are good BUT very dark golden in colour, not WHITE wine. Any suggestions as to why?

[Marble-eye]

2 minutes ago, WilliamG said:

Did both Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc from Jamago's concentrate, both times 2 litres of juice and 6 litres of water, no sugar, Lalvin 1118 yeast.

Both of them are good BUT very dark golden in colour, not WHITE wine. Any suggestions as to why?

My Chard, Sauv and Muscat are the same as yours William, but tastes very good, it also tastes very full bodied (beginning to sound like Oz Clarke/Jilly Goolden now). What I might try at my next attempt is a 4 to 1 ratio, I,m pretty sure it'll stand it and should lighten it up a bit.

 

[WilliamG]

14 minutes ago, Marble-eye said:

My Chard, Sauv and Muscat are the same as yours William, but tastes very good, it also tastes very full bodied (beginning to sound like Oz Clarke/Jilly Goolden now). What I might try at my next attempt is a 4 to 1 ratio, I,m pretty sure it'll stand it and should lighten it up a bit.

Thanks for that. Just put 2 litres of Lambrusco on using 6 litres of water. It only showed 11% 0n my hydrometer so I shall try as Stuhan does, and add 100gm every other day to see what happens. 

I my book, 8 litres of vino for about Bht 1400 is OK.

[Marble-eye]

10 minutes ago, WilliamG said:

Thanks for that. Just put 2 litres of Lambrusco on using 6 litres of water. It only showed 11% 0n my hydrometer so I shall try as Stuhan does, and add 100gm every other day to see what happens. 

I my book, 8 litres of vino for about Bht 1400 is OK.

What worried me a little was the premature fermentation inside the cartons the juice came in, IE the plastic cartons did swell up and there was a very loud 'pop' when I opened them, have you experienced anything like this?

[WilliamG]

1 minute ago, Marble-eye said:

What worried me a little was the premature fermentation inside the cartons the juice came in, IE the plastic cartons did swell up and there was a very loud 'pop' when I opened them, have you experienced anything like this?

All mine have been OK.

[WilliamG]

I have used sparkling wine yeast and added a bit of sugar to each bottle, but no fizz in the wine when opened. Any advice please?

[WilliamG]

On 1/24/2022 at 5:10 PM, WilliamG said:

Thanks for that. Just put 2 litres of Lambrusco on using 6 litres of water. It only showed 11% 0n my hydrometer so I shall try as Stuhan does, and add 100gm every other day to see what happens. 

I my book, 8 litres of vino for about Bht 1400 is OK.

This Lambrusco has gone from 11% to 0% in 5 days. I added 50gm sugar on days 2 & 4, and it tastes OK.

Is this speed of fermentation possible? 

[Marble-eye]

20 minutes ago, WilliamG said:

This Lambrusco has gone from 11% to 0% in 5 days. I added 50gm sugar on days 2 & 4, and it tastes OK.

Is this speed of fermentation possible? 

I don't understand your readings William, are you taking your readings with a hydrometer. Normal opening gravity for wine will be around 1.070 which should give you an abv of around 10% and a reading of 1.090 should give you a wine of around the 13% mark. Both these readings will have finished fermenting when the reading on the hydrometer is about .998 - 1.005.

But yes wine can ferment in 5 days, none of mine has but I can pray.

Just got a Muscat on the go, the one that had started fermenting in the container, infact it exploded in the kitchen, I thought that the SAS had thrown a thunder flash in. I used a mix of 4 to 1 and took a reading of 1.092 but I doubt that this reading will be correct as the premature fermentation will have affected the reading, so it's play it by ear, but I have ordered a vinometer from Lazada which is supposed to give me a reading of the finished wine strength, worth a go for 59 baht.

[WilliamG]

18 hours ago, Marble-eye said:

I don't understand your readings William, are you taking your readings with a hydrometer. Normal opening gravity for wine will be around 1.070 which should give you an abv of around 10% and a reading of 1.090 should give you a wine of around the 13% mark. Both these readings will have finised fermenting when the reading on the hydrometer is about .998 - 1.005.

But yes wine can ferment in 5 days, none of mine has but I can pray.

Just got a Muscat on the go, the one that had started fermenting in the container, infact it exploded in the kitchen, I thought that the SAS had thrown a thunder flash in. I used a mix of 4 to 1 and took a reading of 1.092 but I doubt that this reading will be correct as the premature fermentation will have affected the reading, so it's play it by ear, but I have ordered a vinometer from Lazada which is supposed to give me a reading of the finished wine strength, worth a go for 59 baht.

My hyodrometer shows both SG & % alcohol, which is what I was quoting.

Just ordered the Vinometer from Lazada, thanks

 

Edited January 28, 2022 by WilliamG

[WilliamG]

This should see me through the week !   LOL

[Marble-eye]

On 1/28/2022 at 11:32 AM, WilliamG said:

My hyodrometer shows both SG & % alcohol, which is what I was quoting.

Just ordered the Vinometer from Lazada, thanks

Lazada delivered the vinometer this morning, came with no instructions but checked YouTube for its usage.

I tried it out on my Chardonnay which I knew was about the 13 to 14% abv range, it showed a reading of 14%. Also tried it on my red wine which I thought had stopped fermenting too soon, but that showed a reading of 16%, I did try a slurp of it earlier on and it is far too sweet to drink in its present form, will have to use it for some kind of Punch. What went wrong, I don't know but I'll put it down to human error.

 

[Marble-eye]

1 hour ago, WilliamG said:

This should see me through the week !   LOL

10 out of 10 for presentation, mine has got to be worth a 1?

And welcome to my wine cellar.

 

[WilliamG]

I try to keep tidy. And keep my production ahead of my consumption !

Edited February 1, 2022 by WilliamG

[stuhan]

17 hours ago, WilliamG said:

I try to keep tidy. And keep my production ahead of my consumption !

Great to see all your produce william well done.  I have not been making anything for a while but will start again this month, been a bit busy with one of my other hobbies building custom desktop pc's.

[WilliamG]

12 minutes ago, stuhan said:

Great to see all your produce william well done.  I have not been making anything for a while but will start again this month, been a bit busy with one of my other hobbies building custom desktop pc's.

Great. I put together an i5 PC seven years ago in a Fractal tower capable of holding 8 x 3.5 inch HDDs for my music production with Cakewalk. 2 x 250GB Corsair SSDs and now a Samsung 1TB 870 EVO, plus 2 TB of One Drive is all I need. 

A NUC for my media player works fine.   Keep up the fermenting.

[stuhan]

Went to do monthly shopping at Macro yesterday and wow!!!! they had a huge pile of reduced bananas, so could'nt resist them, bought 5kg and made a 12L batch  with them, ordered new yeast,yeast nutrient and pectic enzyme, can't wait for this wine been a while since my last tipple.

Happy days

[astro]

Have you tried to distill the banana wine into liquor?

I have tried to persuade the local Lao Kao destillers to do a batch with bananas or other fruits, but none would take it up. Is it a different procedure than destilling rice wine?

[stuhan]

7 hours ago, astro said:

Have you tried to distill the banana wine into liquor?

I have tried to persuade the local Lao Kao destillers to do a batch with bananas or other fruits, but none would take it up. Is it a different procedure than destilling rice wine?

I have never tried distilling, to be honest i find my wines 15%-18% are strong enough for me, but i bet distilled banana wine would taste great.

[stuhan]

Started my 1st 6L batch of honey mead on monday, fermenting well after 12hrs. Banana wine is coming along nicely gravity has dropped from 1.120 to 1.040 in 4 days, looking good. Starting a 5L batch of star gooseberry today interested to see how that one goes. 

[stuhan]

All 3  left to right:  star gooseberry wine, banana/honey mead and banana wine, all nearing the end of fermentation, had no problems all took around 8 days now beginning to clear except the banana wine that's gonna take some time i think.

[Marble-eye]

4 hours ago, stuhan said:

All 3  left to right:  star gooseberry wine, banana/honey mead and banana wine, all nearing the end of fermentation, had no problems all took around 8 days now beginning to clear except the banana wine that's gonna take some time i think.

Are you letting the wines clear on their own Stu or did you get anywhere with the construction of the filtration system.

My wines are fermenting much better now I've moved my operation to the outside of the house from the bedroom, it's never cold in the bedroom but certainly much cooler.

[stuhan]

11 hours ago, Marble-eye said:

Are you letting the wines clear on their own Stu or did you get anywhere with the construction of the filtration system.

My wines are fermenting much better now I've moved my operation to the outside of the house from the bedroom, it's never cold in the bedroom but certainly much cooler.

I just leave to clear now, i tried bentonite mixed it the proper way but did nothing to be honest and other finings are expensive so i decided to let them clear themselves. My problem is heat, where i am it's so bloody hot everywhere a real pain and i need to get an old fridge and fit a temp unit to it. I haven't built that filter system yet but i'm working on it.

[WilliamG]

Frozen blackberries are Bht 69 a kilo in Makro. 2 kilos + 4 litres of water 800gm sugar = 15%. See you next week.