New to wine. Help!

[Jackstraw207]

I started a batch of strawberry rhubarb wine and I may have flubbed it. I tweaked the strawberry wine out of the database.
Recipe is as follows.
8 lbs strawberry
8lbs rhubarb
13lbs sugar
Water to 5 gallons
5 camden tabs
Pectic enzyme
Wine tanin
Acid blend
Montrachet yeast

Method: day 1:Frozen fruit in primary with sugar and water to thaw, Camden tabs too. Day2 Gravity reading of must 1.128. Montrachet and all additives pitched. Day 3 stirred for a minute......nothing. Day 4 repitched primer cuvée....12 hrs later still nothing.... Where did I go wrong? It's sitting in a closet at 65-68 degrees...I've made three batches of mead without a hitch. I wash rinse and sanitize religiously.

 

[buMbLeB]

That's a lot of sugar. If it went dry I think you'd be at almost 18%. Can Montrachet yeast handle that all at once?

 

[bernardsmith]

For that quantity of fruit I would think you should be aiming for about 2 gallons of wine (I am ignoring the volume of sugar you added and the amount of water you used to dilute the fruit juice. Did you taste the must before you added the sugar? Did the fruit flavor come through (3 lbs of fruit per gallon is a little thin I would think).
As to why the fermentation may not have taken off, did you check the pH? The acid blend was not added to the must, was it? You intended to add that if the wine needed added zing before you bottled, right? Rhubarb can be very acidic - as can strawberries and if the pH was close to 3.2 the yeast may not be able to handle that kind of acidity.

 

[Jackstraw207]

I'm a complete newb when it comes to wine....I followed the exact process as the strawberry wine in the database... All additives were upfront according to the recipe... Don't have any sort of ph kit so no clue on this info. Since fermentation started on the 13th Gravity has dropped to 1.080 and is fairly rapid. I didn't try the must at all... Honestly my mind was on having a baby the day before and making this wine was something to kill my jitters. Lol. If it works awesome if not, so be it and I'll stick to meads.

 

[buMbLeB]

I don't understand pH either. But if your gravity has fallen like that, it can only mean that it's working. Congrats on the baby!

 

[Jackstraw207]

Gravity is still dropping, its right around 1.045 and still fermenting at an ok pace. Going to let it hit 1.00 or close to it before I rack to secondary and pull the fruit. Sampled it yesterday and it tastes like sweet strawberry juice with a hint of alcohol and hardly any rhubarb flavor, nice pink color.im surprised it's holding the color so well.

 

[Mismost]

i would pull the fruit....it has been in there over a week now, right? Are you stirring it every day? Punching it down?

 

[Jackstraw207]

Pulled the fruit out this morning and took a gravity reading. It's sitting at 1.040 with roughly 12% alcohol.OG of 1.128 was saying 17% was possible.I punched fruit cap daily for 9 days and stirred gently for a minute or so too. I'm not a fan of dry wines so is there a gravity to look for to know when to stabilize so it's not super dry? Thanks for all the info and knowledge in advance!

 

[bernardsmith]

Lots of folk argue that you can stop fermentation in mid flight much like the carnival magician stops a bullet between his teeth... My process is to allow the yeast to convert all the available sugars to alcohol and then remove the yeasts over time by racking and then stabilize the wine with the addition of K-meta and K-sorbate. Then you can safely add sugars to sweeten the wine. How much to add? Bench test and add the amount of sugar that gives you the sweetness that you prefer given the flavor of the fruit, the acidity of the wine and the amount of alcohol in the wine..

 

[Jackstraw207]

Gravity has dropped down to 1.020. Fermentation is slowing way down. Should I continue stirring daily for a minute or not? I don't want to cause any problems(oxidation).

 

[lukebuz]

I would rack the bucket into a carboy now to finish out. No more air or stirring needed. You'll have a LOT of lees from the strawberrries.

I think it might be a sickly sweet rocket-fuel no body mess - but no turning back now! Finish it out and hope for the best!