Doing my first batch, have a few questions.

[lankyjon]

Hello all,

I just started doing my first batch of wine a week ago, and I have a few questions.

1) I believe my fermentation has stopped with a Specific Gravity of 1.040. I'm going to monitor over the next couple of days to make sure. I think what may have happened is I had a large amount of foam on the second day or so, and I believe a large amount of the yeast spilled out of the fermenter. If my wine has stopped fermenting, can I simply add a second pouch of yeast to the wine?

2) I am using Star San for sanitizing, but the person I am learning from has never used it before. He uses campden tablets to stop the wine from fermenting any further once he racks it the first time, apparently. Do I also have to use campden tablets to stop the fermentation process? Does the Star San somehow do this on its own? (To be honest, I'm a little bit confused by this section of the brewing process. Can anyone help me out here?)

3) I was told to allow the must to sit in the primary fermenter until it reached a Specific Gravity of 0.990 or so. However, in my own research, I have found advice saying to move it to the secondary fermenters once it reaches 1.010, and then to re-rack it once it reaches 0.990. What is the proper process here?

Thanks so much for the help!

 

[CatonRW]

Has fermentation just slowed or has it stopped all together? normally fermentation will slow considerably after about 5 days and will continue at a lot slower pace. Rack from primary into secondary and reattach airlock and watch for a day to see if it is still fermenting.

As for the campden tablets they are used to kill any bacteria and foreign yeast that may have gotten into the must. All I use the Star San for is sanitizer used for sanitizing all equipment before racking or bottling.

The process is fairly simple and can vary for different wines I myself use my hydrometer to check starting gravity and check it every time I rack the wine for the first 3 months after that it is pretty much done fermenting and just clearing so I don't bother but generally once your wine hits 0.990 on the hydrometer it is done fermenting.

 

[Yooper]

1. Where did you start? 1.040 is very high, but if you started with a ton of sugar, it might be finished and not just stuck.

2. Campden doesn't stop fermentation. It's true that some people say it does- but they are wrong. Winemakers use campden all the time as an antioxidant and preservative. To use enough to stall fermentation, you'd have to make the wine nearly undrinkable. If your friend is using it to stop fermentation, fermentation was probably done anyway. I use campden at every other racking, as an antioxidant for the wine.

Star-san is a sanitizer for equipment and gear, but not for putting in the wine. Campden is commonly used at the very beginning to kill wild yeast and bacteria (but not wine yeast, as it's very tolerant of sulfites) instead of heating up the wine.

3. Rack when the wine gets to 1.010-1.020 if you can. Sometimes it happens that the wine gets to .990 really fast, and I miss that window, but ideally the wine would be slowing down in fermentation but still fermenting a bit, to help protect the wine with c02 when you rack. Once fermentation really slows, rack and top up to protect the wine. If it does get to .990 or so, that's fine and it won't harm the wine at all just be more careful not to splash at all as you rack.