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Hi All
In my first few wines I've been using Young Super Yeast as I bought the tub before find this site. Anyway I decided that I'd give some of the other yeast a try, so the plan is to try some small batches and see how they come out.
The test bed will be based on wine number 1 made from pure grape.
Yeast under test: Lalvin D47, Gervin Varietal 'D', Gervin No. 2 and Young's Super.
To ensure equal test conditions I made up a start as per the tutorial section, for this I used a litre of apple juice add the adjusted sugar, nutrient and acid and heated this up to sanitise as per instructions. This was then cooled and shared out between four 500ml bottles and yeast pitched, tops covered to keep bugs out and put to one side.
Observation:
The two gervin seemed to spread through the starter solution quickly turning it a light cream colour and showing strong signs of fermenting, the Lalvin also showed this same cream colour but not a light with only slight signs of ferment, the Youngs while no were near as cloudy as the others showed sign of a strong ferment.
Just over 12 hours later the Gervin No2 had produced a head up to the top, so ~250ml of foam. Varietal 'D' had a head but not as big and the youngs also had a head. The D47 had very little foaming. I did notice that the bubble were a lot smaller than the other three. So left them for another 12 hours before pitching into the main Must.
For the Must I made this from 2 litres of aldi white grape juice and made this up to 4 litres and a SG of 1.080, having observed the amount of foam produced I shared this out to four 1 litre fermenters, this was done by adding 2/3 rds of the starter then topping up with the Must and airlock fitted. One thing I did not take into consideration is that by creating the starter I was going to add ~200ml of this to the Must, with not topping all the way up, this left me with a litre left, Doh!, so in a bottle and to the fridge it went.
To make sure I got all the yeast from the starters I put a lid on and gave them a shake to ensure they were well mixed, expecting to release so CO2 I was prepared when taking the top off, all went according to plan until I did the D47 which blow the top off as I loosened it and filled the bottle with a fine foam, so I'm guessing that with the smaller bubbles that the starter was absorbing a lot more CO2 than the others, this will have to be something to take note of at the de-gassing stage.
It's now been a day since adding the starter to the Musts and all are fermenting Nicely.
Lalvin D47: This was the last to show activity in the air lock and is bubbling the slowest, no head to speak of.
Gervin No2: Started up like a rocket, was bubbling away in less than 30 minutes with a good rate, good sized head has formed but looks to be dropping.
Gervin Varietal 'D': This was the third to start bubbling but now going at a good rate, head has formed but not as big as the No2.
Young's: Started up not much longer after the No2 with as much vigour. Looks like the head rose high enough to get into the airlock, woke up this morning to see it just starting to come out the top and stop it going all over.
Will top them all up in a day or two when I'm sure they have settled down a bit then test SG a few days later.
Mark.............
In my first few wines I've been using Young Super Yeast as I bought the tub before find this site. Anyway I decided that I'd give some of the other yeast a try, so the plan is to try some small batches and see how they come out.
The test bed will be based on wine number 1 made from pure grape.
Yeast under test: Lalvin D47, Gervin Varietal 'D', Gervin No. 2 and Young's Super.
To ensure equal test conditions I made up a start as per the tutorial section, for this I used a litre of apple juice add the adjusted sugar, nutrient and acid and heated this up to sanitise as per instructions. This was then cooled and shared out between four 500ml bottles and yeast pitched, tops covered to keep bugs out and put to one side.
Observation:
The two gervin seemed to spread through the starter solution quickly turning it a light cream colour and showing strong signs of fermenting, the Lalvin also showed this same cream colour but not a light with only slight signs of ferment, the Youngs while no were near as cloudy as the others showed sign of a strong ferment.
Just over 12 hours later the Gervin No2 had produced a head up to the top, so ~250ml of foam. Varietal 'D' had a head but not as big and the youngs also had a head. The D47 had very little foaming. I did notice that the bubble were a lot smaller than the other three. So left them for another 12 hours before pitching into the main Must.
For the Must I made this from 2 litres of aldi white grape juice and made this up to 4 litres and a SG of 1.080, having observed the amount of foam produced I shared this out to four 1 litre fermenters, this was done by adding 2/3 rds of the starter then topping up with the Must and airlock fitted. One thing I did not take into consideration is that by creating the starter I was going to add ~200ml of this to the Must, with not topping all the way up, this left me with a litre left, Doh!, so in a bottle and to the fridge it went.
To make sure I got all the yeast from the starters I put a lid on and gave them a shake to ensure they were well mixed, expecting to release so CO2 I was prepared when taking the top off, all went according to plan until I did the D47 which blow the top off as I loosened it and filled the bottle with a fine foam, so I'm guessing that with the smaller bubbles that the starter was absorbing a lot more CO2 than the others, this will have to be something to take note of at the de-gassing stage.
It's now been a day since adding the starter to the Musts and all are fermenting Nicely.
Lalvin D47: This was the last to show activity in the air lock and is bubbling the slowest, no head to speak of.
Gervin No2: Started up like a rocket, was bubbling away in less than 30 minutes with a good rate, good sized head has formed but looks to be dropping.
Gervin Varietal 'D': This was the third to start bubbling but now going at a good rate, head has formed but not as big as the No2.
Young's: Started up not much longer after the No2 with as much vigour. Looks like the head rose high enough to get into the airlock, woke up this morning to see it just starting to come out the top and stop it going all over.
Will top them all up in a day or two when I'm sure they have settled down a bit then test SG a few days later.
Mark.............
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