Hello. I just started viewing this forum and it looks like you guys could steer me in the rite direction in this wine project I have going on. I started making tomato wine 4 days ago. Everything was going good until fermentation stopped. I asked another wine maker and he said that I didn't have enough sugar. So I added more and am hoping this will do the trick. If anybody has made any tomato wine and ran into problems, your tips and advice would surely be helpful.
New wine maker in trouble...
- Thread starter kiwi74
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By day 4, the fermentation slows down and it's time to rack the wine to secondary- a carboy, and top it up and airlock it. Fermentation stops because the yeast eat the sugar and then are just about finished.
You absolutely need a hydrometer, and should take readings before fermentation starts (so you know if you have enough sugar, or too much) and when it ends.
Adding more sugar was probably a mistake, but if you already did it's too late to change it now.
Just see if it starts again. If it does, you may end up with some hot tomato rocket fuel. If it doesn't you may end up with sweet tomato wine. Either way, wait a few days and see what happens. If fermentation doesn't start back up, make sure you rack it to a clean sanitized carboy, top up to the bung, and airlock it. Let it sit for 45-60 days, and then rack it to a new carboy as tomato wine will throw a ton of lees for a long time. By then, it should be clear, but will still throw more lees so you'll need to rack a couple of times.
I have my tomato wine recipe posted (on the left, under my avatar in the recipe pull-down) if you want to see my instructions.
Yooper said:
Thanks a lot for the info, Yooper. Everything you wrote is all new to me. I already added more sugar and fermentation started again, I just hope I'm not making kerosene. I checked my hydrometer and the alcohol content was very little, like .5 percent. What can I do to increase it to where it needs to be?
Ok. So the current gravity is 1.023, right? Did you take a gravity reading when you started? We need a starting gravity reading for comparison.
1.023 still has some sugar left in there and will come down more with time. I'm confused about why you want to raise the gravity again. We want it to go down.
1.023 still has some sugar left in there and will come down more with time. I'm confused about why you want to raise the gravity again. We want it to go down.
Rereading, I think I understand.
In order to calculate the alcohol content, we need to subtract the final gravity from the starting gravity. Hopefully you used your hydrometer at the start.
The 1.023 reading you have today represents the amount of fermentable sugars left, not the alcohol. We can't easily measure alcohol, but we can measure the sugar content and convert that to a known amount of alcohol after the yeast complete their mission.
In order to calculate the alcohol content, we need to subtract the final gravity from the starting gravity. Hopefully you used your hydrometer at the start.
The 1.023 reading you have today represents the amount of fermentable sugars left, not the alcohol. We can't easily measure alcohol, but we can measure the sugar content and convert that to a known amount of alcohol after the yeast complete their mission.
The starting gravity was about the same, I really didn't know about the importance of the hydrometer until I really started to ask around. The more I read in this forum, the more I started to realize I may have screwed up this wine. Should I rack it this early, I started the must on 9-14. The recipe called for 4 cups sugar per 5 lbs of tomatoes. I had 13 1/2 lbs and I added 8 1/2 cups sugar. I did a s.g reading after 24 hrs and it was @ 1.02. And after the fermentation stopped, I checked the s.g again and it was @ .98. On the 18th I added 6 1/2 more cups sugar and the s.g is at 1.023
Well, 4 cups of sugar is about 2+ pounds. So, you added about 5 pounds of sugar. How many gallons are you making?
The SG at .998 was very good, but now you've added more sugar and may overload the yeast and end up with a sweet wine. 6 1/2 cups of sugar added is another 3 pounds or so- that's a lot, as it's almost as much as you added originally!
Just leave it alone for now, and see how low it will go.
Table sugar adds 46 gravity points per lb per gallon, meaning for every lb you add to 1 gallon your specific gravity will rise .046. (1 lb IN 1 gal = 1.046, 1 lb in 2 gal = 1.023 and the math continues)
You added a total of 15 cups of sugar to your must. 15 cups is roughly 7.5 lbs. depending on density and such... This gives us roughly 690 gravity points. This does not include the sugar naturally found in the tomatoes.
In 5 gallons this yields a theoretical starting gravity (SG) of 1.138 and if you can ferment to 1.000 will yield around 14.5-15% abv. (remember this doesn't include tomato sugar).
In 3 gallons, SG= 1.230... off the scale high, like 30%... you're yeast will never survive, ... see the alcohol tolerance of your yeast.
Download and Read This, It helped me out alot when I started making wine.
You never said what volume you were working with...
Personally, I'd let the yeast eat until your airlock activity slows, then rack, take a sample and see what you have to work with.
If you're more daring you could split the batch and up the volume with more tomato juice or water (water would dilute flavor as well as alcohol content). In this case I would keep the trub and try to get half into the second fermenter as well to supply it with enough yeast to do the job again.
Or you could try again, do a tasting, and come up with a ratio to blend the two wines if you find an enjoyable mix.
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