friendlybrew
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- Mar 13, 2015
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Hello! First post but I've been reading this forum a lot for the last year. I am making a 20 litre batch of red wine (adding a few litres of grape juice every few days to keep the sugar levels at the right level) and have run into a problem. With the carboy about half full I had to leave for a couple of weeks. In this period the yeast consumed all the sugar and seems to have completely stopped fermenting. I further noticed that the airlock was not airtight. I tried adding another few litres of juice but after 2 days it has not restarted. Worryingly I spotted this evening strange white spots on top of the wine. Sadly I suspect it has become infected while exposed to the air without any carbon dioxide blanket to protect it. Therefore I plan to pasteurise the wine to about 70 degrees to kill the infection, if there is one, cool, rack to a new clean carboy and repitch fresh yeast. I will heat the wine in a lidded pot to minimise alcohol loss. Does this sound like a bad idea? I considered just using Campden tablets and repitching the yeast after a couple of days but I don't think this will completely kill the infection. As the wine is only part fermented I assume oxidation is not a problem when transferring into the pan and then into the new carboy. Any suggestions? Thanks!
PS photos of the wine attached.
PS photos of the wine attached.