Need help please, fermentation stopped (with photos)

[Leon bali]

Hello everyone, i hope doe get some advice and help from all of you.

I am fairly new to homebrewing and live in the tropics with warm climate.
I have so far brewed 4x batches of different fruit wines and had mixed results. Obviously still playing around with different yeast and mixtures.

The latest batches all were made with Lalvin EC 1118, but not this one. This particular one was still made with regular bread yeast.

There the composition:
17L gallon "fermenter"
Days fermenting: 5

2x Frozen Papayas (dissolved very quickly)
2x fresh unfrozen papayas (still didn't really broke apart)
10x squeezed oranges
some star anis, lemon and ginger
BREAD YEAST
White sugar
Starting gravity: 1.065

Now here is what the issue is.
I started fermenting, the previously frozen papaya broke apart within the 1st 48h, the fresh ones (ADDED ONE DAY AFTER) still haven't really been affected by fermentation. It was all as normal, fermentation started, airlock was bubbling, the must got foamy... but now on day 5, the fermentation slowed down a lot! airlock bubbles only every 45sec, also i dont see and tiny bubbles. What should i do? Add more sugar to get the yeast going again? move to secondary fermenter? add more yeast?

here some photos:
Day two:


Day 5:


Please, any advice would be more than helpful

Cheers and thanks so much

 

[DuncB]

I'd expect it to start very quickly as lots of sugar to ferment. Not sure how alcohol tolerant bread yeast is.
Can you see bubbles still rising thru the side of the fermenter. I am not sure whether that floating fruit matter can get that metabolised by the yeast being on top. Probably let it go for a bit longer few more days, have you a hydrometer? if so when activity at airlock stops then test and if stable for three days it's done fermenting. Would say that if the gravity is very high and stable then a different yeast such as a wine or champagne yeast might get going again. Sometimes lack of nutrients is a problem with things like mead but I'm not that experienced with fruit wine. Only made kits and some elderflower fizz ( but a lot of beer ).
Might be worth a bit of a swirl to see if any of that fruit sinks but perhaps wait for someone elses advice on this.
Perhaps look up yeast harevesting if yeast is difficult to get so you can save from one ferment to the next.

 

[Leon bali]

I'd expect it to start very quickly as lots of sugar to ferment. Not sure how alcohol tolerant bread yeast is.
Can you see bubbles still rising thru the side of the fermenter. I am not sure whether that floating fruit matter can get that metabolised by the yeast being on top. Probably let it go for a bit longer few more days, have you a hydrometer? if so when activity at airlock stops then test and if stable for three days it's done fermenting. Would say that if the gravity is very high and stable then a different yeast such as a wine or champagne yeast might get going again. Sometimes lack of nutrients is a problem with things like mead but I'm not that experienced with fruit wine. Only made kits and some elderflower fizz ( but a lot of beer ).
Might be worth a bit of a swirl to see if any of that fruit sinks but perhaps wait for someone elses advice on this.
Perhaps look up yeast harevesting if yeast is difficult to get so you can save from one ferment to the next.

Hello and thank you for the quick reply.

I do have a Hydrometer, yes. The initial gravity was 1.065
During initial fermentation i usually give my blends a nice swirl every morning to get mix the fruits around and. But they keep floating back to the surface. Ill wait until tonight and then take another reading, see how stable the fermenting process is. But i never had this issue before, so its weird.

 

[DuncB]

If it's still bubbling even only once a minute or so I'd say it's still working and continue with your nightly / daily swirl. I'd expect a beer at 1.065 OG to still be fermenting slowly after 5 days as your brew is. Assume that it's not too hot or cold?
I would keep calm at the moment, it is a different yeast, the Finns ferment their homebrew beer with ( sahti ) with bakers yeast and it was used a lot in the uk prior to homebrewing being legalised.

 

[Leon bali]

thank you for the reply.

It supposed to be wine after all, what would be a good starting SG for fruit wine?

 

[DuncB]

I suppose it would depend on how strong you want it, there is the unknown amount of sugar that will be extracted from the fruit, this calculator quite useful
https://www.brewersfriend.com/abv-calculator/
If 1.065 goes to 0.994 then it's 9.3 %.

So a low abv but the fruit sugar factor not in that figure.

There is a good youtube channel Doin the most they make a lot of meads with fruit in so in a way fruit wines just with honey instead of sugar. They have lots of advice about enzymes etc that can help as well. Worth a look.