Bad Spring Water?

I moved across country, took on a new job and and haven't really had time for beer and wine making. Yes,I need to get my priorities in the correct alignment. But that's not my question or the basis for this post.

I bought some "Vintners Best" Black Currant fruit wine base. It says to add 4 gallons water pitch yeast and other standard wine directions.

I'm using a 5 gallon carboy, only added 3.5 gallons of "Spring Water", and pitched a packet of dry yeast "cote de blanc". Nothing happened. Basement was 65degrees so I dug out the fermentation chamber and set it to 71 degrees. Nothing.

Pitched a packet of Montrachet from a different shop. 2 days later I got a ring of dry yeast floating on top. No bubbles. Nothing.

Is it at all possible that the Dollar General Spring Water has some preservative in it that is killing the yeast?

Hard to believe I got two bad yeast packets from two different stores.

 

Have you taken any gravity readings?

 

No, but I will check the gravity so people don't wonder if it fermented out super quick.
That said the airlock hasn't moved, sitting level both sides

 

One week, two different yeasts from two different shops and I'm at 1.090 or so,
Ive never seen my beer hydrometer float this high.
Has to be the water I used?
Only other possibility is the acid content of the solution?
I gently rolled the carboy around for a couple minutes to stir things up and Ill check the ph in a couple of days if nothing happens, I guess.
Mostly I'm at a loss as this was a pour and go attempt that hasn't worked.

 

Doubtful that it could be the water, they simply open the tap on the kitchen sink, put it in a bottle and charge you money.

The only "spring" in there is the one inside the kitchen faucet!

 

See? Your batch is probably toast - you know better. This is why you always hydrate your yeast at a minimum, and make a yeast starter for 12 hours as a best practice. While you are letting the sulphite do it's thing, why not have the yeast starter doing it's thing? This way, your batch takes off faster without risk of spoilage!

Dump it, learn, and use a starter.

 

No spoilage, nothing wrong with my sanitation, the juice still smells as sweet as it was in the jug. As for starters, Ive done plenty of beer starters but never a vino one. Sure its good insurance that the yeast is viable, theres other good reasons why as well. People deposit dry yeast in wannbe wines on a regular basis and it takes off.
the fact that I did it twice and nothing happened means something else going on.

Right or wrong I'll never buy that mix again though I'll probably buy that yeast again.

 

Of course. 95%+ dry pitches probably work out fine! But why risk it? What if it was a batch of hard picked blackberries...that took you 8 hours to pick and 2 hours to clean? Sure would suck for it to oxidize with no fermentation going for 5 days...

 

In that scenario, he may have hydrated the yeast... But he didn't spend 10 hours harvesting blackberries from the wilderness... He bought a wine kit. I'm sure he's looking for solutions to his problem or at the very least, answers. If you shared your knowledge, I'm sure that's appreciated by all, but you may want to save it with the lectures based on hypothetical situations.

 

I know. My bad. I got a little preachy. I like to learn the hardway, and just trying to help others out!

 

I've done 55 gallon batches of wine in the blue water barrels with dry yeast. It usually takes 2 to 3 days for it to kick in but it always has.
Now my suggestion would be to hydrate a new batch of yeast and make sure its actually working, then dump it into your carboy. If it starts working you should be ok, if nothing happens then its something in the kit. Just my 2cents