pomegranate wine won't ferment

[Spar]

I made a wort (can you say that for wines?) of pomegranate wine using 15% fresh squeezed fruit and Trader Joe's pure juice for the remainder. A fair amount of rind made it into the juice--yech! Used Campden tablets according to instructions. Pitched yeast (forget what kind--it was labelled "for fruit wines") and..nothing. 48 hours later pitched a second batch of the same yeast after starting it in warm sugar water. It fermented in the starter, but did nothing once added to the primary.

I'm thinking of trying again with champagne yeast. Any ideas on how to salvage this project? Or what I might have done wrong?

 

[Nurmey]

Welcome to HBT!

How do you know it's not fermenting? Have you taken a hydrometer reading? Lots of wines just kind of sit there and look like they're doing nothing.

 

[enderwig]

Did your juice have any preservatives in it?

 

[Spar]

Nurmey--I did not record the hydrometer value. Doh! I'm used to ales which really froth. I see no bubbles in the carboy, and there is no gas passing through the air trap.

enderwig--As far as preservatives, I've unfortunately recycled the juice bottles. The product is called "Just Pomegranate Juice" and is labelled as "All Natural Pasteurized." Acouple of years ago my wife made some very good pom wine using the same juice.

 

[Yooper]

Check the SG now, and see where you are. It might be going, but it might not be. I'd see if I could find the containers at the store and read the ingredients- maybe they add preservatives now.

 

[Nurmey]

This is certainly a puzzle. If it was the R.J. Knudsen Family juice, the ingredients are listed: POMEGRANATE JUICE. R.W. Knudsen Family® - Just Pomegranate

I can only think of a few possibilities:
- you have a leak causing your airlock to not move
- it fermented so fast, you missed it
- really long lag time with your yeast

Is straight pomegranate juice really acidic?

 

[Spar]

Thanks everyone for all the interest:

--Specific gravity (today) is 1.101

--pH is 6.8 (I used 10 tsp citric-malic-tartaric acid blend)

--The juice vendor (Trader Joe's) asserts that there are NO preservatives in the product.

There is a remote chance the yeast nutrient was contaminated with sorbistat-K, a possibility my wife denies, somewhat defensively(!)

I should probably clarify the recipe included acid blend and yeast nutrient. After 4 days I placed the wine in a glass carboy with air lock. This was about 2 weeks ago. We keep the room in the mid to high 60s °F. When I unstoppered the carboy today there was no yeast smell, only fruit.

I'm still thinking of trying champagne yeast and more yeast nutrient. Any thoughts?

Steve

 

[Yooper]

I would suggest getting more yeast in there, that's for sure. The ph seems high for a pomegranite must, especially with acid blend, but that won't stop it from fermenting.

Maybe do a yeast starter this time with your yeast. What I would suggest is rehydrating the yeast, and then add a bit of your must, diluted with some water. When that's foamy, add some more diluted must. Keep doing that until it's going well, and then start adding less diluted must. When you can add straight must, then add the whole starter into your must. (This whole process might take 2 days or so).

 

[Spar]

I'm on it. Using Lalvin EC-1118, for whatever that's worth.

 

[nebben]

Ditto on the starter. EC-1118 is pretty tough stuff...hydrate it first, then start adding diluted amounts of the must to it....after a day or two, and additional amounts of must in the starter, it should be rockin'. What recipe are you using? How many campden tablets did you put in? Also, how big of a batch is this (10 tsp acid blend)?

 

[Spar]

I added the EC-1118 in January and left the wine sitting in the dark for the last 5 months. Today the sg is 1.100, the liquid tastes sugary with a little bitter fruit rind flavor, and apparently no alcohol.

I think we can rule out commercial preservatives and bad yeast based on the prior Q&A. I speculate that the rind may have antifungal activity. In fact I never see mold on old fruit; it just cracks and dries up. I believe, being part scotsman and not wanting to waste a drop of valuable juice, that I ground too hard with the juicer and got too much rind into the mix. This is the best explanation I can come up with.

 

[Spar]

Now the remaining question is, pour it on the vegetables or down the sink?

 

[Yooper]

You know, if it's not spoiled, I'd give it one more try. Maybe take out a cup of the must, add water (to lower the SG) and sprinkle yeast on it. When that gets going, add more must. It just might go ahead and take off, if you can get it going. It might be worth one more try.

 

[scinerd3000]

yea why the 10tsp. i dont do wine too often but for the ones i have done thats alot.

 

[STEVENJAN]

I used Pasteur Champagne to ferment my Pomegranate concoction and it's been fizzing away ever since. 1 week now and still going. I read a little bit about it(yeast) and it is recommended for fruit wines and stuck fermentations. That might work. I of course had what I think is a high sugar content. That might have something to do with it. I used Red Star and I don't know what an equivalent from another brand would be. I am sure other members know and can add to the topic.

 

[Cugel]

Thanks everyone for all the interest:

--Specific gravity (today) is 1.101

--pH is 6.8 (I used 10 tsp citric-malic-tartaric acid blend)

As a novice wine maker I may be typing/talking through my hat, but that pH looks really off to me. In wine musts I see pH values like 3.2 (acidic) to 3.8 (less acidic). I am totally unsure what your pH means as a super high pH - like yours - should be amenable to easy fermentation; but if you really added 10 tsp acid blend and measured the pH accurately I find it hard to understand this mixture of ultra low pH and yet a high acidity level can occur.

Did you use beer or wine pH test strips?
What is the volume of your must?
How many campden tablets did you use?
What was the date on the yeast you used? How was it stored?

I have a feeling that either the pH, acidity combo is waaaaaay out of line for healthy fermentation, the yeast was waaaaay old or improperly stored, or you have too much SO2 in there via campden tabs.

 

[DavidH20109]

I used Red Star - Pasteur Red with my pom juice wine, and its been bubbling away for about a month now. Starting sg was 1.095

 

[Chuchulainn]

This may come a little late, but I didn't see any added sugar in your recipe. Pommegranates are actually quite low in sugar; they won't even ferment naturally. Some Israeli guys developed a high-sugar strain (and a naturally fermented wine to go with it), but for the rest of us I'd recommend adding sugar, even for artificially pitched yeast. Also make sure to aerate the juice so that the yeast can get started. That's all I can think of.

 

[bmckee56]

10 tsp is equal to 3 1/3 tbs. What size batch of wine do you have? One poster mentioned sugar additions. If your S.G. starting out was 1.101 and your S.G. after 5 months was 1.10, you had essentially no activity occur in the primary at all, but based on the hydrometer reading, you had a lot of stuff in suspension. Don't know if that is sugar or some other substance, but if it was sugar, you should have had some fermentation activity, albeit little.

I think 6.8 pH is very close to being neutral. Was the original pH higher or lower before adding the acid blend. If you were able to take a pH reading, you can use the ph meter to test your TA (total acid) content to determine if you have overdone the acid blend. Wine should be lower in pH than 6.8, so this might be a significant part of your problem.

If it were me and it was not a big batch of wine, I would toss it and try to start over. To much inactivity in to long a period of time.


Salute!

 

[Amin]

well i juiced my poms, Before i even add any sorta yeast they start fermenting like crazy natural fermentation on pomegranate!!
anyone had similar or just my pom juice like this!

 

[Amin]

forgot to mentioned i didn't add any type of sugar either and its still going like crazy!
as far as i remember pom don't have much sugar content in it anyway!
i gonna keep this batch see what will come out of it! :cross:

 

[jensmith]

Pomagranite juice has normel amounts of suger for fruit. At least the ones I juiced a few weeks ago did. They also ferment without added yeast in the fridge. Just like any other fresh juice will. Wild yeast is everywere!
Your juice is in way too small a jug for fermenting. The narrow neck is not helping any either. Small space with lots of gass.... Hense the fast overbubbeling closer to the top.
I would dump it into a bigger bucket and stirr the bubbels out of it. Then add whatever else it is that still needs adding. Just make sure it is in a big bucket that can handle the foam up.
To reduce foam up, do not add anything dry. Wet all dry ingrediants first. Disolved them in small amounts of water or juice first. Unless you like volcanes
There is a chemical explanation for all this but I can't remeber what it is.


Sent from my iPod touch using Home Brew

 

[Amin]

yup checking it every few minute, volcano is for 1 second of it!

i had 1 bottle of it in cellar it exploded yesterday -_- and it wasn't even warm what a powerful natural yeast.
painted whole cellar red hahaha.

well now it turn like green blue after i cleaned it up as much as i could interesting color change!