Don't disturb?? WHAT????

[FeelinKindaGiddy]

I have made quite a few Meads, Melomels, a couple of Cysers and Ciders along with a few homemade fruit wines. I pitched the yeast on a wine kit (Vino del Vida: Piesporter) 3 days ago and it is in active fermentation now. Here is my question: I have been de-gassing and adding nutrient and energizer about 2-3 times during active fermentation on all of my last 7-8 batches of mead and ciders. The directions say to just sprinkle the yeast on top of must (no rehydrating or yeast starter) and don’t disturb for 14 days. I just can’t stand not “helping” it along.
A couple of other things that surprised me were the addition of Bentonite to the juice the first thing and the kit came with Lalvlin EC-1118. So far I have “almost” kept with the directions ( I added tannin, acid blend and peptic enzyme to 24 Oz of strawberry juice that I made of about 2 lbs of fresh strawberries, sweetened, boiled and pureed then strained), sorta, kinda followed the directions. Lol
What should I do??
I want to feed and watch the gravity to determine the when to rack and finish. BTW the OG was 1.072. The 1118 should take it down to 0.0.
Thanks, Giddy

 

[Yooper]

Wine is best when you don't muck about it in. No need to degas, and risk oxidation. No need to "help" it. All that agitating it will do is encourage it to never clear.

You never boil fruit, so you don't set the pectins. You can use campden to "sanitize" the must when using berries, but a cooked fruit flavor is icky. Think of the difference between a fresh strawberry and a canned (cooked) strawberry. I'd never cook fruit before using.

Nutrient additions are unnecessary if the must already has enough nutrients. You don't need to risk oxidation for your wine to muck about in it. Leave it completely alone, and rack to secondary when fermentation slows. Usually, that's about 1.010-1.020, but you can guestimate five days if you don't want to check the hydrometer reading.

 

[ACbrewer]

FeelingKindaGiddy - the difference here is for the meads, ciders et al you made, you were following a recipe that said 'do these things'.

But with the wine kit, you kinda want to just follow the kit instructions. Anything else might not help the wine along. And rushing it might not help the flavor either. Most wine kits are already balanced for tannins, acid, sulpher, etc.

BTW, most wine kits come with 2 or 3 agents to help clear it. One is bentonite (aka grey clay). Another is frequently used is issilinglass (aka shelfish parts). In at least 1 other thread Yooper stated that given enough time most wines will clear with out these agents, although wine kits are again designed to use them.