I'm a believer

I am brand new to brewing and my first batch needed to be thrown away because I couldn't get fermentation to start. I did not create a yeast starrter. My second batch is jack Kepler's strawberry chocolate wine. This one I created a yeast starter for about 12 hours and it completed fermentation in less than 2days. I was amazed at how quickly it finished. Km glad I checked the gravity and was able to rack it to a secondary.

Bottom line is reactivate your yeast with a yeast starter.

How long did you let your first batch sit before you threw it out?

Complete fermentation in 2 days sounds really fast.

There is such a thing as 'cooking your must' and it happens when your ferment finishes way too fast. I would be very observant of off odors from here on out and off tastes 6 months from now. Not saying a speedy ferment does not happen, just that they sometimes (more often than not) bring bad news. Two days actually kind of concerns me. What was your temperature and yeast?

BamaProud said:

How long did you let your first batch sit before you threw it out?

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I let it sit about 3 weeks or so. I tried re-pitching the yeast and it really never took. It didn't cost me anything cause I had the stuff sitting around so I wasn't really worried about the cost. I really wanted the fermenter more than anything.

saramc said:

There is such a thing as 'cooking your must' and it happens when your ferment finishes way too fast. I would be very observant of off odors from here on out and off tastes 6 months from now. Not saying a speedy ferment does not happen, just that they sometimes (more often than not) bring bad news. Two days actually kind of concerns me. What was your temperature and yeast?

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The yeast was Lalvin 71B-1122 and the temp was a pretty constant 72 because our air conditioning has been on. I'm not sure if it matters, but this is only a 1 gallon batch and I used the entire packet of yeast. I really hope this doesn't produce any off odors, cause I'm hoping I can give a couple bottles away as gifts.

If air temperature is 72, you are probably fermenting around 75-78. Fermentation generates heat.

Hopefully all will be well with this batch of wine. It wasn't completely finished fermenting as it continued to bubble a little bit for about two more days. Now that it is finished, I took a small sample and I didn't notice any off smells yet. I'm praying they don't develop in the near future. The batch tasted very young but there are definite strawberry, chocolate and alcohol flavors there. I have high hopes for this batch now.

your liquid temperature in your must should be about 60-65 degrees prior to pitching the yeast. If your yeast can survive colder temperatures then by all means lower the temperature even more. Some yeasts can even run in 55 degree musts.