stalled

[Mr impatient]

I would presume somewhere on here is the information I need but I don't know how to access it yet so;

I had a problem with the wine I have/am making because during a cold snap my wife and children left the doors open, this was three weeks ago. I have since made a warm box in my workshop so that will not happen again. I have wine which has stopped its fermentation and it was only put in the demijohn on the 2nd September, I have older wines that have started up again but the blackberry has not moved at all.

I marked the airlock so I could see how much pressure there was on all the stalled wines and the recovery of some was slow and two others quite quick, but my blackberry is as flat as a pancake.

Bernardsmith has given me some advice by saying not to put in any nutrient (I bought this up a few weeks ago under the thread "Opps", and it was confirmed to me that if I just leave them alone and they will sort themselves out.

If I activate some yeast with a little sugar and introduce that into the wine will that sort it out? The gravity is 0.08 and with wines I have made before it is at least one inch from where it should be on the hydrometer (I have the worlds worst hydrometer and the reading from it confuses the heck out of me, although bernardsmith has explaned them to me, I must be as thick as pig dudu because I still don't understand them)

Will adding more activated (with a little sugar) yeast work?

 

[bernardsmith]

Really the only way to "know" what might be going on is to know what the recipe of your wine and the method (protocol) you followed in making it. If we know, for example, how acidic (pH) the wine is that can sometimes point to a problem. The starting gravity can also point to a problem; as can the ambient temperature in your wine room.
If you have a stalled fermentation the trick is NOT to repitch more yeast into the problem batch but to create a new starter with fresh yeast and slowly double the volume of the starter by adding to it from the problem batch. You add more from the stalled batch ONLY when a) the starter shows that it is very active AND b) just about all the sugar from the problem addition has been used up. In other words, restarting a stalled batch is a LENGTHY process.

 

[Mr impatient]

Really the only way to "know" what might be going on is to know what the recipe of your wine and the method (protocol) you followed in making it. If we know, for example, how acidic (pH) the wine is that can sometimes point to a problem. The starting gravity can also point to a problem; as can the ambient temperature in your wine room.
If you have a stalled fermentation the trick is NOT to repitch more yeast into the problem batch but to create a new starter with fresh yeast and slowly double the volume of the starter by adding to it from the problem batch. You add more from the stalled batch ONLY when a) the starter shows that it is very active AND b) just about all the sugar from the problem addition has been used up. In other words, restarting a stalled batch is a LENGTHY process.

Ok, so I think you are saying, get a clean demijohn and add yeast with sugar mixture and a pint of the stalled wine and see what happens. If it starts to ferment give it a day then add another pint and continue until it is all in the new demijohn. Is this correct?

 

[bernardsmith]

It's correct only if your starter is 1 pint. You want to double the volume of the starter with the problem batch. If your starter is 100 ml then you add 100 ml from the stalled batch. The idea is not to drown the starter with what may be a systemic problem.

Not sure that you need to give the initial inoculation a whole day. It may be totally fermented in a couple of hours: you are dealing here with small quantities to begin with and doubling the volume at each step.

As to the starting mix I might try to find some pure apple juice without any preservatives or even some dry malt extract. You do not want the starter to have a higher SG than about 1.040