First wine - 48 h, no yeast activity

Hi, I've been brewing beer for a while now, but when a friend and I found a good plum tree we decided to try wine.

Two days ago we poured all our washed plums into a bucket, added boiling water (to sanitize the fruits further) and mashed them. After letting the the goo cool to room temp we added hydrated dry yeast.
The plan was to let this ferment for 2-4 days, then get the liquid out (leaving skin, seeds etc), and then add sugar to the juice and ferment further.

But we pitched the yeast almost 48 hours ago, and there's still no activity in the airlock.

Where did we go wrong?
Is the gravity too low due to the water addition (we added enough to just cover the plums)? Should we have skipped the water, fermenting only fruits? If so, will adding sugar now help?

Any help is much appreciated.

What were the pH and SG?

Also, boiling and wine just don't go together well. Next time try campden to kill nasties.

It sounds like you are trying to ferment the mash?
You might be better off extracting the juice and ferment that.

DoctorCAD said:

What were the pH and SG?

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Gravity is 1025, pH I don't know. I assumed the gravity would rise as the plums "dissolved" and let their juice out?

menerdari said:

It sounds like you are trying to ferment the mash?
You might be better off extracting the juice and ferment that.

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I read in a book that fermenting the mash for 2-4 days makes the fruits slushy, sort of dissolving them, so that the juice comes out and the rest can be filtered off?

What strain of yeast & what is the ambient temp? Are you stirring daily? Are you fermenting in a bucket?
Regards, GF.

Does your bucket have an air leak that the gasses go threw vs.the air lock? A big issue I had with 2 gallon buckets. Open it up an see if there's small bubbles on top. Or even smell it.

edues said:

Does your bucket have an air leak that the gasses go threw vs.the air lock? A big issue I had with 2 gallon buckets. Open it up an see if there's small bubbles on top. Or even smell it.

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I had the same problem with 2 gallon buckets, Thankfully they have little big mouth bubblers available now, perfect seal every time.

here's a good link on how to make wine. i've been making it for a few years now, and learned how to from this guy:

http://www.eckraus.com/winerecipes/plumwine.pdf

Thank you for the help, and sorry for late reply. It turns out that the yeast pack was a bit old, and after a few more days the we got alot of bubbles in the airlock. Not a good start I guess, but a good lesson. Will use camden tables next time, and not add water, and use fresh yeast

Thank you once again for useful comments and links