Disaster has struck, please help!!!

[Ivan66]

I had a dried Apricot wine on the go for 4 days in the bucket, strained it off the solids yestarday into a 3gal PET bottle made the SG up to 1090 and it has died, no sign of re-fermention. The total amount of sugar was not excesive. I may have inadvertantly killed it by mistake as I forgot to rinse the straining bag after sanitising it in a sulphite solution.

Is there any hope of recovery? what could have gone wrong? Any help out there please?

Ivan66

[Duffbeer]

I had a dried Apricot wine on the go for 4 days in the bucket, strained it off the solids yestarday into a 3gal PET bottle made the SG up to 1090 and it has died, no sign of re-fermention. The total amount of sugar was not excesive. I may have inadvertantly killed it by mistake as I forgot to rinse the straining bag after sanitising it in a sulphite solution.

Is there any hope of recovery? what could have gone wrong? Any help out there please?

Ivan66

Ivan, why did you not set the gravity at the start when you started pulp ferment ? How much sugar did you add after transfering to secondary and what was the sg of the pulp at the start ?
The sulphite on the straining bag will have stunned the yeast, but with good stirring and airation it should restart, provided it hasn't been suffocated with sugar.

[kmoorman]

Ivan,

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I had a dried Apricot wine on the go for 4 days in the bucket, strained it off the solids yestarday into a 3gal PET bottle made the SG up to 1090 and it has died, no sign of re-fermention. The total amount of sugar was not excesive. I may have inadvertantly killed it by mistake as I forgot to rinse the straining bag after sanitising it in a sulphite solution.

Is there any hope of recovery? what could have gone wrong? Any help out there please?

It could be a number of things:

1. How high was the SG of the wine prior to fermentation in the bucket - as 1090 is more than high enough for the entire drop, let along topping up.
2. On that subject, what was the SG when you moved to the PET bottle, as taking the SG up to 1090 in one go may shock the yeast into dormancy.
3. Not rinsing the straining bag may have temporarily halted the yeast, but I'd guess options 1 or 2 will be responsible.
4. Even of all of this is ok, the act of moving containers can still shock the yeast temporarily, as the exposure to cold air / cold containers can have that effect.

If you haven't over sugared, then leave it for a day or 2, to see if it recovers; and if you've not added any before, maybe consider adding some yeast nutrient to help it along.

If it doesn't recover, then follow the process for stuck fermentations.. with a starter bottle and new yeast.

If you have over sugared, the problem will be that the yeast may not be able to ferment out all of the sugar it's been presented with, in which case you'll end up with an over-sweet wine.

[lockwood1956]

Hi Ivan
some more details if you would be so kind, so we can help

what was the starting gravity


the recipe will likely help too

not sure why you added sugar to 1.090...this as has been eluded to earlier is likely your problem
but not unrecoverable....

but look at your methodology, if you get this area right, then you will encounter less problems.
regards
Bob

[Ivan66]

Thanks for the replies so far.

I didn't put all the sugar in to start as I didn't know how much liquid I would have after I strained out the pulp so I held off on some of the sugar untill I strained the solids off. I ended up with 8lts and topped up to 10lts putting in enough sugar to make the top up water 1090. So I don't think too much sugar was the problem.

So from your replies, it may well re-start hopefully.

Ivan66

[Ivan66]

Forgot to mention, the starting SG was 1090, can't give the exact recipe right now as I'm at work but 500g dried apricots, 680g sugar 250g sultanas but I recalculated the amount to make 10lts as apposed to a gallon which the above amounts are for.

[Ivan66]

Bob,

These reason for my strange methodology was because as I said, I don’t know how much liquid will be left after the solids have been taken out, so my idea was to take the reading 24hrs after putting in the Pectolase but before the yeast, then when I know the quantity (after pulp removal) I can work out the starting g/l of sugar which now takes into account the sugar from the fruit, from that I can work out how much sugar in total was in the must so I can then fine tune how much more needs to go in to achieve the desired %vol.

On reflection I think I was doing this in an overcomplicated way which has lead to a miss-calculation somewhere. As I said in another thread, a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.

So what in your view is the best approach please?

[Mamgiowl]

Yep - you certainly seem to have complicated it a tad

However take a deep breath and give the must a damn good stir to get some air in it and drive off the sulfite, although I wouldn't have thought the amount on an un-rinsed straining bag would have much effect on 10ltrs

Next step is to wait a couple of days, Yeasts sometimes get sulky after being racked and take a day or two to get back to work. After that, as has been said, go down the re-start route.

[lockwood1956]

So what in your view is the best approach please?

Keep it simple Ivan


Prepare the must, adjusting acid and sugar levels taking care of nutrient levels and enymic additions.

Pitch the yeast

ferment down to 1.020 to 1.010 (punching the cap and/or stirring as necessary) rack off gross lees

ferment to dry

rack off fine lees

stabilise and sweeten if required

filter and bottle

[Ivan66]

Thanks Guys, I will try to simplyfy things but what I'm trying to say is, I don't trust the sugar levels given in recipes, its well known a lot are too high. So I was trying to guage the amount of sugar in the must after the fruit has released it's own sugar so I then know how much to add. Otherwise if you set the SG to say 1080 at the start then by the time the sugar comes out the fruit it could be way too high.

[lockwood1956]

Hi Ivan
the best you can do is a close guess when it comes to acid and sugar levels in fruit...... but this should help in that regard

http://www.winesathome.co.uk/downloads/sugarandacid.pdf

[Ivan66]

Got in last night and still no sign of life at all, so started the restart procedure. I now have about half restarted, the restarted stuff is fermenting very slowly but is fermenting so tonight I'm going to tip the restarted stuff back in with the other and hope for the best.

It currently stands at 1030 and considering it's current stage in development it don't taste bad so hopefully I will get it down to at least 1000.

I went over my calculations for sugar again and although originaly doing it in a bit of a around the houses way, the total amount of sugar I used did come close to the recipe owners suggestion (Gerry Fowels), I only worked it out for myself to see how closely it came to what he said use, so I don't think too much sugar was the problem.

Any final thoughts or suggestions please guys, apart from, yeh give it up and try another hobby.

[Richard S]

Any final thoughts or suggestions please guys, apart from, yeh give it up and try another hobby.

There are some great recipes out there but the methodology that supports them is sometimes poor, CJ Berry's teeth rotting amounts of sugar addition is a good example. The basic method that Bob suggests can be applied to lots of recipes without issues, have fun.

[Ivan66]

It's alive again

[Mamgiowl]

yay!!!!