First batch ever! need help!

[307cowboy]

ok last night i picked a whole bunch of plumbs from my back yard. i thought it would be a good idea to suplement the plums i made with some grape concentrate. after following the encyclopedia of wine making to a "T", i am left with nothing more than a flat bucket of juice. i sterilized everything well and added 100 degree purified water. i took my density reading before adding yeast or nutrients and it was 1.090. good right? i added a montrochet (sp?) yeast. activated of course.

that was almost 24 hours ago...

there was nothing going on with my wine this morning so i thought it might be too cold in my kitchen. i took the bucket upstairs where it is always warm and left it. still nothing. would adding another yeast packet be beneficial? what am i doing wrong? please help!! =)

 

[outdoorsmadness]

did you add campden tablets? if you did you suppose to wait 24 hours before adding the yeast, if thats the case i would add more yeast.

 

[barracudamagoo]

ok last night i picked a whole bunch of plumbs from my back yard. i thought it would be a good idea to suplement the plums i made with some grape concentrate. after following the encyclopedia of wine making to a "T", i am left with nothing more than a flat bucket of juice. i sterilized everything well and added 100 degree purified water. i took my density reading before adding yeast or nutrients and it was 1.090. good right? i added a montrochet (sp?) yeast. activated of course.

that was almost 24 hours ago...

there was nothing going on with my wine this morning so i thought it might be too cold in my kitchen. i took the bucket upstairs where it is always warm and left it. still nothing. would adding another yeast packet be beneficial? what am i doing wrong? please help!! =)

RDWHAHB! It's fine, give it time. Sometimes it will take off, sometimes it will not, and other times you are not going to notice it. Your wine may very well be fermenting. I would say give it another 48 hours (72 hours total from the initial pitch) and then take a gravity reading. The gravity reading is the only way to verify fermentation.

 

[307cowboy]

thanks for your input guys! and you were right baracuda. i stuck it out and took my density reading a few days later and to my surprise, it was fermenting! after about 3 days it started frothing and going nuts too! im fixing to do my first racking! (after straining out the plums of course) is it around now i want the malolactic fermentation to start?

 

[barracudamagoo]

I think it is a bit soon to rack; I would wait at least 60 days before your first racking. It is not going to hurt anything to let it set for a while longer.