Something very strange happened with my test can anyone explain this?

I have a strange result from one of my test samples, it seems like a bit of a riddle for me maybe someone here would understand it byut I dont!

1/2 gallon cider
1 cup white sugar
1 pound strawberries (blended)
1 pint blueberries (blended)
1/5 packet yeast (nottingham)
dash of yeast nutrient
Did not heat anything

I fermented at right around 70 degrees. The other tests are still fermenting very happily.

I let it ferment for 2 days and it started to go insane and overflowed like crazy. I forced out a lot of the blended fruit pulp by putting it through a strainer. I had a taste and it was sweet with a hint of alcohol in it. Again the sweetness probably masked some alcohol. I put it back in the fermentation vessel and added some preservative free lemonade to fill the void of the pulp. (was not a ton of space) It continued to ferment. There were no leaks of any sort.

After another 2 days it finally stopped fermenting. I wondered what had happened. It seemed odd. Anyhow I decided to bottle it, figuring that it was done. I strained out the bulk of remaining crap and poured it into 3 12 ounce bottles and primed each bottle with 1/2 teaspoon of sugar. I tasted it and it was slightly bubbly already but not very much... It was sweet but not as sweet as before. It felt like there was more alcohol in it. It didnt taste gross in any way which leads me to believe that no bad bacteria messed it up (could be wrong)

My guess is that since there was so much tasty stuff for the yeast, the yeast ate all of it like an all you can eat buffet and died due to too much alcohol %. This is sort of really confusing... I am very new to this all but I am trying to figure out why it would stop fermenting like that. It could possibly be in the range of the max alcohol level for nottingham yeast

Did you take a hydrometer reading at all!?! There is no way it should have been done that quickly, and even if it was, you should have racked it off the fruit and into a secondary for a few weeks. And you added sugar at the end!!! There is way too much sugar still unaccounted for, and more was added. You are going to get bottle bombs!

Oops! I thought I could bottle it if it stopped fermenting though? I hadn't taken a hydrometer measurement at the start and when I tried to after it just sank right down all the way. I am definitely going to measure everything as I put them in from now on though.

Yeah I just went to open all 3 of them and they slowly started bubbling up and overflowing slowly but relentlessly. It's such a small quantity of stuff I don't really know. Maybe ill just let it sit some more.

Wine takes several weeks (more than beer)

Sanitize a fermenter and put it back in. The kits that I have done of Wine had me stir it often. I shook it (first few batches) then I got a stiring wand that hooks up to my cordless drill. After getting it mixed up, fermentation takes off again. The recipes I did only calls to stir it one or two times during the three or four month process.

And dang Candle Wine Project! Girl that wine looks like a ghost of a bottle, I'll bet that batch took some tender loving care.

http://stuntman.smugmug.com/Might-Be-Anything/Beer/9962769_xjGXA#780675854_V4KGZ-A-LB

Since I pretty much ruined this stuff and learned my lesson, I decided to strain out all of the remaining stuff that I could. I added a ton of vodka, sugar, and lemonade and bottled it up. I am going to stick to strictly cider for now. Cider that doesn't have any pulp in it either! I don't want to wait for it all to settle!

I'll call it "Fortified Strawberry Blueberry Cider"

Tantalar said:

Since I pretty much ruined this stuff and learned my lesson, I decided to strain out all of the remaining stuff that I could. I added a ton of vodka, sugar, and lemonade and bottled it up. I am going to stick to strictly cider for now. Cider that doesn't have any pulp in it either! I don't want to wait for it all to settle!

I'll call it "Fortified Strawberry Blueberry Cider"

Click to expand...

I would call it Fortified Strawberry Blueberry Grenades! You better put those bottles in a place where you want to kill rats! In a few days with warm temperatures, you will be having shards of glass permeating a radius of a good ten plus feet. Vodka by itself MIGHT stop yeast from growing, but the sugar and the lemonade with sugar are going to explode the bottles like little bombs.

Too bad you added vodka. You might have been able to open them back up and put them back in a fermenter and gotten it to start again.

Basically, fruit is allowed to be in the primary for 5-7 days. Rack to the secondary, and allow it to be there for a month or two. Always check with a hydrometer to make sure it is done - do not rely on the airlock. Also, if you go sweet, you need some way to make sure the yeast stays dead.

Beer doesn't even ferment that fast.