Primary fermentation overflow!

[Cjm72]

Primary fermentation overflow!
Can anyone help?! I am making a 5 gallon from juice Chianti. I just went up to stir it and found that it overflowed. Is it ruined? Did I lose yeast? I just split into another bucket. What should I do?

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi Cjm72, and welcome . Unlikely that any harm has occurred. The secret is to have enough headroom in your primary and if you are fermenting 5 gallons you might want to have a bucket that can hold 7 gallons if you are unfamiliar with the aggressiveness of the yeast or the froth and foam that might accompany the fermentation of fruit and espeially if you are adding powdered nutrients or any powders after the yeast has begun to produce CO2. Powders provide points of nucleation and those points enable gas to collect and that collected gas can have enough energy to create volcanoes in the liquid shooting up columns of wine.

 

[Cjm72]

Thank you so much for getting back to me. Yeah I thought about that when I was getting started. This is only my second batch. I did a trial on a 1 gallon Malbec. My primary is only a 6 gallon. I should’ve split between two vessels from the beginning. I realize that now. So you don’t think I lost any yeast in the overflow? Is that even possible? And what should I be looking for now that this has occurred?

 

[bernardsmith]

Monitor the specific gravity. The gravity should be dropping each day. If it is then there is nothing to worry about. If the gravity of one of the fermenting containers is not dropping then you may not have collected enough yeast when you transferred the wine (it's wine the moment you added the yeast). If it seems to have stalled because of insufficient yeast simply add another pack of yeast to the stuck fermenter: this is not the same as a normally stalled fermentation so you can simply add more yeast but if the gravity is dropping then you have yeast working away on the sugars.

 

[Cjm72]

K. I’ll have to order more yeast from Hartford CT. It was a kit. But thanks for the info. I sooooo appreciate it

 

[Cjm72]

I found a packet in one of my boxes. The EC-1118 is what came with the kit. Can I mix the two if I need to add? Or does it need to be the same?

 

[Seamonkey84]

If it already started fermenting your all set, your yeast will grow. Always make sure to have extra head room. If you had have any solid fruit in a batch, you’d need to aim for a vessel nearly twice the volume of your batch!

 

[Coffee49]

Wine juice is an odd liquid. At 74 C yeast may start in 4 hours or 24 hours. Same with ferm, Some go 72 hours, some go 1 week. A towel or 2 wrapped around the neck helps when adding yeast nutrient and yeast.

 

[Cjm72]

Good to know. Thx. Just checked my specific gravity. It’s at 1.026. However I stirred it before I measured. Is that an inaccurate read? Should I have checked specific gravity prior to churning?

 

[Cjm72]

Monitor the specific gravity. The gravity should be dropping each day. If it is then there is nothing to worry about. If the gravity of one of the fermenting containers is not dropping then you may not have collected enough yeast when you transferred the wine (it's wine the moment you added the yeast). If it seems to have stalled because of insufficient yeast simply add another pack of yeast to the stuck fermenter: this is not the same as a normally stalled fermentation so you can simply add more yeast but if the gravity is dropping then you have yeast working away on the sugars.

Just checked specific gravity. Today’s read is 1.026. However I checked it after I stirred. How accurate is that measurement? Should I have checked SpG before I stirred?