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+--- Thread: wine racking (/thread-17418.html)
- harleyman42mm - 07-11-2001
Why isn't my wine fermenting in my glass carboy? I let my must ferment for about six days, fermenting as usual. Transferred must into glass carboy, I havent't notice any fermenting action. Could it be the temperature, which is about 82 degrees, or is my yeast gone bad or what? I never ran into this type of problem, can you help thanks:
- hotwine - 07-11-2001
I haven't made any wine in several years, but it sounds like the yeast was shocked into shutdown during the transfer, maybe by rough handling. Suggest you let it sit for a few days, and maybe it will re-start.
And maybe also someone who currently is in to winemaking will pipe up with another idea....
- Catch 22 - 07-16-2001
Two thoughts, Harleyman. One is that the heat is too much and killed the yeast. The book I used as my reference when starting out put 77 degrees (F) as the upper limit before the yeast starts to go south.
The other possibility is that it is still fermenting, but at a much slower pace so that you cannot see it happen. Depending on the type of fermentation lock you use, you may be able to see some movement there which may indicate a continued, yet slower fermentation. I hope that this is the case. Good Luck.
- Dick Peterson - 07-16-2001
You haven't told us how much sugar is left in your juice. You won't kill wine yeast off simply by pouring or racking the juice during fermentation. A sudden temperature change can shock it but the fermentation will start again if there's plenty of live yeast present and plenty of sugar present. But if you've fermented it nearly to dryness and then racked off most of the yeast (all the lees in the bottom of the carboy is mostly yeast), then your fermentation can get stuck. That's a common error of new winemakers. The other bad error is to store the carboy in a draft during fermentation. Taste it. If it's not very sweet, the best thing to do is to filter it very tightly, add about 35ppm of SO2, bottle and store cool. Begin drinking after about a month. It will never go completely dry.
If it's still quite sweet, then add new yeast and store at around 75 degrees without drafts blowing on the carboy. It'll start again and eventually go dry. Don't rack it so clean until the fermentation is really done. But keep air out. In fact, the only reason to rack at all during a fermentation would be if you started getting lots of H2S evolving from the fermentation. That would be unusual.
- Catch 22 - 07-19-2001
OOPS! Sorry, Harleyman, I was way off on one of my guesses.Curiosity got the better of me, so I went back and checked my book. According to "The Art of Making Wine", hot fermentation (above 80F) will make a bitter wine, 85F will weaken the fermenting power of the yeast, and it is not until 95F that the yeast will die. I apologize for the bad info I gave you earlier. Apparently, the memory starts to go as I approach 40.