Help! Wine not fermenting

[jakestern]

So I am doing a home-brew with minimal equipment. Basically I don't have/ cant afford a gravity scale now an air lock as they aren't available in my country of service. I recently started a plum wine, i.e yesterday afternoon and made a ratio of 6kg of plums to 4kg of sugar in a 5 gallon container. I pasteurized the batch and then put it in the primary fermentation container. Then, I made my yeast starter and put it into the batch.

The problem I have is...the starter has not actually done anything yet. The batch was pretty warm from pasteurization so I am worried it killed the yeast. I tried putting the container in a bath of water to cool it down but woke up this morning and it is still much less in terms of noticeably fermenting than my peach wine. Do you have any suggestions. I used a Red Star Montracchet packet. Can I redo the yeast starter and not loose the entire batch?? Any other suggestions?

:fro:

 

[Pappers_]

Welcome, I can imagine supplies are difficult to get in Morocco.

If you pitched the yeast when the juice was hot you' re right that you might have killed the yeast. It would have to be hot, though, not warm, well above 100F.

Its also possible that its just taking a day or two for the yeast to show signs of active fermentation. Without an airlock, how are you able tell if fermentation is starting? In my wines, it can take a few days for the juice to get bubbly and obviously fermenting.

No harm in repitching yeast, though, if you have it and are concerned. I don't think most homewine makers make a starter if they are using dry yeast, or at least I haven't.

Good luck and, again, welcome.

 

[podz]

If you pitch yeast into higher than e.g. 35C liquid, it can die. Sometimes, people pitch at 30C to get a real fast start given that the liquid should cool down to 20-24C within a few hours. However continuous liquid temps above 30C will kill the yeast.

You need to get a glass thermometer from somewhere, tie a string to the end of it and use it to measure the temperature of your liquid. It should be kept at a maximum of 24C during fermentation time, especially important is the first 2-3 days.

Wine, unlike some beers, usually always starts airlock activity within 24 hours. If it doesn't start then just pitch some more yeast when your liquid is between 20-24C. No problem.