Mango wine stuck at 1.080

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

BrewinHooligan

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 28, 2011
Messages
4,240
Reaction score
1,697
Location
Mesa
I brew beer mostly and needing help with some wine I'm trying to make for my wife. Started around 1.150 per recipe found here, stuck at 1.080 currently after a month. Do I pitch more yeast or what's the best course of action?
 
I brew beer mostly and needing help with some wine I'm trying to make for my wife. Started around 1.150 per recipe found here, stuck at 1.080 currently after a month. Do I pitch more yeast or what's the best course of action?

1.150? Wow, that's so high that I don't know if you'll be able to get it much lower. My wines start at 1.100 or less, normally.

I guess you could try a starter with champagne yeast. Start with some sugar water, until it's foamy, and try adding some of your diluted wine to it. Not much, just a little. If it keeps going, add some more (diluted) wine. If it keeps going, add more wine and less water. Do that until you can add straight wine without the starter conking out, and if it's still going, you can add the yeast starter to the wine. Stir the wine well, before adding the starter, to get out any co2 that is in there as well as to get some oxygen in there. That might work.
 
Thank you Yooper, your help is always great and appreciated. Right now it is a sickeningly sweet syrup. Would diluting the whole batch with some water help it to finish dryer as well before adding the starter do you think?
 
Another - possibly more insane idea - is to dilute your original batch down. Using Yooper's numbers, if you started at 150, and she usually uses 100, you could make a new fermentor with more water (about 1/2 your original start) so you will finish with 150% of the batch volume, but bring your effective OG down to about 100.

I personally think that you can get a few more points out of that depending on the yeast. iirc some wine yeast goes 15-17%, which should reduce out about 120 points of gravity. That doesn't mean it will if you start really high, but it could.
 
what kind of yeast did you use???? ec-1118 maxes out at like 18% and it wont always get there so yea you probably used a 14-16% max yeast that got overwhelmed by sugar.
 
I used Red Star Premier Cuvee which is supposed to max out around 17% if I remember correctly. I racked to secondary and added water to get me to 1.050. I will be making a starter and pitching over the next few days in hopes it will finish up.
 
Rehydrated and pitched ec-1118 last night after I had watered the batch down to 1.050. The new yeast is going strong and has brought most of the fruit that had settled up to the top. Wish the pic wouldn't rotate from my phone, but you get the idea.

ForumRunner_20121012_061227.png
 
The EC-1118 will be my go to yeast from now on! Just took a reading and my cheapo hydrometer only reads down to 1.000, but it looks like I am around .095 or lower now and tastes really good despite being very strong and young. I didn't even bother with making a starter when I re-pitched, I just rehydrated and tossed it in. I need to run out and grab a couple 1 gallon carboys so I can rack it over and let it clear.
 
OClairBrew said:
The EC-1118 will be my go to yeast from now on! Just took a reading and my cheapo hydrometer only reads down to 1.000, but it looks like I am around .095 or lower now and tastes really good despite being very strong and young. I didn't even bother with making a starter when I re-pitched, I just rehydrated and tossed it in. I need to run out and grab a couple 1 gallon carboys so I can rack it over and let it clear.

Remember, every yeast has its purpose. EC-1118 is good for restarting and high alcohol.

If you want different tastes, use different yeasts. Make sure you don't add too much sugar.....
 
Even though it's not a wine yeast, WLP099 WILL ferment your wine. It works slowly, but it is unstoppable. Well, until it hits around 20% Abv. Which you'll be getting close to on this if it ferments all the way down. How on earth did you get 1.150? Lots and lots of sugar? And what is your volume?
 
2.5 gallon batch and per the recipe I followed I added around 5lbs sugar. This one has come out pretty dry, but still has a nice flavor and for how strong it is, it is surprisingly smooth already. Next batch will probably get less sugar and will have strawberries replacing some of the mango.
 
Back
Top