Apple Pomegranate

I recently bought 4.5 gallons of store brand apple juice, 1 gallon of Pom Wonderful, 4 cans of frozen apple concentrate and some white sugar.

Poured most of the juice into my primary, mixed all of the additives by shaking them in a jug of juice and pouring it in, bumped up gravity and volume by boiling a gallon of water, adding sugar and four cans of frozen concentrate.

OG was 1.085 - 1.090
Wound up with ~6.5 gallons of must.

I pitched Lalvin D47 the night before last and still see no action. Do I repitch?

Were there any preservatives in any of your ingredients?

My current blueberry/pom batch took awhile to get going. Do you have a lid or cap on? If so put a towel or loosen the cap for the first few days.

Why would I do that? It only leave space for wild yeast and bacteria to float in. Yeast produces CO2 which is heavier than O2. This means that any air that might make it into my fermentor wont make contact with the must, but might drop spores and other baddies into my must.

I realize that yeast needs the O2 during flocculation (or however you spell it) but that's why I aerate the must before putting the lid and airlock on and open it to give it a good stir on day two.

The label (front and back) makes no mention of preservatives, potassium sorbate or otherwise.

I'm pretty sure its not legal in Maine to fail to put this on the label. I added redstar champagne yeast when I got home tonight. I'll report back tomorrow night.

I have made countless wines with a loose lid and a piece of toilet paper over the airlock hole. Never had any undesirables, and I have 2 cats (Hence the name 2Cats Wine). I just fish out the cat hair and keep on going.

Remember, a pile of wild strawberries laying on the ground, wetted by rainwater, will make wine. Don't believe me...watch the quail that drink it.

You are more brave than I. Perhaps that will come to me with experience.

I have messy roommates, two cats and two dogs in my house. I'm more than a little nervous about contamination. My other 5 batches worked just fine with airtight conditions.

As for the rotting berries... I wont argue that there isn't alcohol, because there usually is, but they probably taste like skunkpiss.

Not looking to pick a fight, in fact I'm interested in trying the unsealed method when I have a dedicated clean air brewspace. Perhaps I'll make a tyvek filter patch for one of my buckets and do a side-by-side, but a towel seams foolish in my present brewspace. It could be my gross inexperience making me nervous.

Still no bubbles...

I may have to dump it. :-(

Don't dump, taste sample to see if there is a change, it is possible you aren't air tight. and add more yeast if it doesn't seem like it is going, and there is no off flavors.

What sort of temperatures are you trying to ferment at? Seeing that your profile says Maine - I am guessing it is still really cold there........

Most wine yeast needs fairly warm temperatures (>70F) - unlike most Beer yeast.... and will stall out stone cold at 60F.... You will have yourself a nice 3 month Primary at 64F.... If you can... Move it to someplace near a heater vent - it doesn't take much.

Just watch out - Champagne yeast ferments *Really* hard once it kicks over... go search the term "Wine Geyser".... You really want to run your primary in a big bucket covered with cloth..... or use a blow off tube and about 10" of headspace in your carboy.... or you will be posting here about wine all over your celing!

Thanks

Angus... you'll be fine just covering the wine in a open container. That's how Most people run the primary. I only use a plastic cover becuase it's handy and I don't put it on tight. Odds are there are preservatives in the juice, you just don't realize the names of them, like ascorbic acid.

It can take a few days for some fermentations to get going .... Take another Gravity reading now that you've added more yeast and let us know what it is.