First batch, slowed fermentation, time on lees...

[TungstenBeer]

I am an experienced homebrewer and I recently bought my first wine kit (a Cellar Craft Merlot kit from MoreBeer) to take a shot at my first batch of wine. While I'm no expert beer brewer by any means, I do have the equipment (temp controllers, electric HERMS system, etc) and the knowledge to at least be a more than capable brewer.

My knowledge of wine making is more or less limited to the instructions that came with my kit, however.

On Monday November 23, I threw the ingredients of the wine kit together as per the instructions, pitched yeast, and set aside in my fermentation chamber (a chest freezer with a fermwrap). For various reasons, my temperature controller was out of commission, but I had hoped that the 55 degree basement would keep the fermenting wine cool enough and I wasn't really worried about things being too cold. I was wrong. By Saturday the 28th, the temperature had swelled up towards 80 degrees (78.4 was my highest measurement, but it may have gone higher). At this point, my temperature controller had become usable again so I rolled the dice and tried to reset the temperature to 70F.

The kit says that primary fermentation should take 10 days and be at .998. I know there are never hard and fast rules when it comes to yeast and fermentation but I also know keeping wine on the lees can be much more harmful than keeping beer on trub.

I am sure that turning on the temperature controller (and thus the chest freezer) stalled out the yeast. When I measured gravity on Tuesday the 30th, it read 1.023. On Thursday the 3rd (originally the day I was going to transfer to a smaller vessel), still 1.023. At this point I stirred, roused the yeast a little bit, and increased my temperature controller to 75F, hoping to restart the yeast.

Yesterday, Monday the 7th, I measured a drop of 11-12 points to about 1.011. The wine was bubbling a little bit so it was still active.

My questions are:

1. Should I consider pitching yeast to get it to finish off? I used 2 packets of BM4x4 in lieu of one package of EC-1118 that came with the kit. Or leave it to do its thing and resume the kit's schedule once "FG" is reached?

2. If I just let it be, will the wine be negatively impacted by sitting on the lees longer than planned?

Thanks so much!
T

 

[pumpkinman2012]

At 1.011 the wine isn't finished fermenting, increasing the temp again was a good thing, I would stir the lees back into the wine, this will mix any viable yeast back into the wine instead of being trapped in the lees.
As far as sitting in the lees, if it were the gross lees such as crushed grapes skins I would be more concerned.
I'd mix it up and if the gravity level hasn't changed in 2 or 3 days then it might be time to think about racking, the kit calls for racking at .998, you're not far from that.

I hope that this helps.

 

[TungstenBeer]

At 1.011 the wine isn't finished fermenting, increasing the temp again was a good thing, I would stir the lees back into the wine, this will mix any viable yeast back into the wine instead of being trapped in the lees.
As far as sitting in the lees, if it were the gross lees such as crushed grapes skins I would be more concerned.
I'd mix it up and if the gravity level hasn't changed in 2 or 3 days then it might be time to think about racking, the kit calls for racking at .998, you're not far from that.

I hope that this helps.

There was a grape skin pack included in the kit so maybe there is an issue to think about?

 

[pumpkinman2012]

No worries, once the gravity doesn't change for three days it is usually considered done., if the wine is still fermenting, there's nothing to worry about.