Strangely slow ginger wine

[Kahless]

I started a ginger wine on the 10th of May, and by the 14th of June it was only at 1.050, and by the 10th of July it is down to 1.042. It's still fizzing, and it has the pale cloudyness I associate with suspended yeast. The trub is not very deep: I cannot see a thick layer of yeast at the bottom. It's 23C here: this is too slow to be right! What's going on?

I had never made anything with fruit before, and stuffed all the chopped fruit and ginger in a plastic demijohn, but I couldn't fit all the sugar in there!
I had to keep back 900g of the 1.3kg sugar and I planned to add into the secondary once the fruit and ginger had been filtered away. I planned to take the lees and all the yeast with me by stirring before hand Maybe I didn't get enough yeast through, as some seemed to stick to the fruit, and the remaining lot are slowly powering through with incredible loyalty?

However, When adding the remaining amount of sugar, I boiled it in water first (and cooled before adding) in order to sanitise it. I ended up popping to the toilet and boiled it for 10 minutes longer than I intended, and ended up with this thick syrup. I added some water and boiled a little more to dissolve it in, but is it possible that this thick goop is not as fermentable as the table sugar I intended to use? Afterall, I don't see Galaxy Caramels fermenting on the counter. If this is the case, I will be able to add more table sugar and just not backsweeten as I planned to.

A third possibility in my mind was infection, but I don't think so, even though it looks like this. I think yellow bits are some banana pulp that made it through the filter (also known as a pair of sanitised tights). If that looks like any sort of infection please let me know!

It tastes like some sort of spicy-sweet super burny ginger beer. You can smell the heat of the ginger. It is fantastic, but I want to up the alcohol to wine levels (it's ideally 7.7% just now).

Here is the recipe:
Ingredients:
1 carton white grape juice
350+ grams of peeled, cut, chopped ginger.
300g raisins/sultanas etc without sulphites, chopped
300g of bananas, unpeeled, chopped, boiled for 20 minutes in 150ml water; strain resulting liquid into must (might add entire bananas depending)
1.3kg sugar
zest and juice of 1 lemon
zest and juice of 1 orange
tiny pinch of malic acid?
tsp of very black tea
tsp of yeast nutrient
tsp pectic enzyme
topped up with oxygenated water to 4Liters. (topped up to 4.5L after primary fermentation)

The yeast used was the yeast cake of a Beaverdale Red wine kit, which included some red wine (hence the pink tone).
I kept the temperature at 21C for the first four weeks. Now it's out of the cooler/warmer to make way for some beer but it's 23C in here.

Side note: Next time I make wine with crushed fruit etc, I'll do it in a big bucket with a straining bag and get everything in there!

 

[saramc]

Kahless,
Ginger can be a yeast inhibitor when working with cultivated yeast so sometimes you can have a slow ferment.
Also, sometimes when you use the yeast cake from a previous batch it will have an impact depending upon what the SG was at the time you harvested the lees and actually pitch that cake. Obviously the yeast are there because you are fermenting. Like when making Skeeter Pee it is recommended that you use the lees from a batch well before they are dry. You want to ensure you have good colonization.

What is the total combined SG? I figured the 1.3kg of granulated sugar provided a SG of 0.128/gallon. I would like to recommend a dose of yeast nutrient (but only if you have not used more than 2/3 of your fermentables)...and I know just from the SG of that added sugar you are 'safe' to add the nutrient now. Just be sure to stir to degas before you add it, otherwise you will have a volcano to deal with. I think things will be fine, even with the sugar syrup you are concerned about--the fermentables are definitely still there, you did not & can not cook them away. Oh, I think the floating dark yellow bits are nothing more than strands of yeast cells.

Using a bucket as primary is always a good idea, especially if you do not airlock it immediately. Not sure if you had an aerobic ferment at any time, if not that could be another reason for slow ferment. Always a good idea to allow access to oxygen until the OG drops by 2/3 or approx 10 days whichever comes first. You can stir 1-2x/day, manipulate any added fruit, etc.

 

[Kahless]

Thank you saramc
The red wine kit I used had just finished fermenting (FG was probably just under 1, 3 weeks duration); I racked it off to secondary and left what was at the bottom. That recommendation about harvesting yeast much earlier than that is interesting - Is the idea to catch them right after the growth stage but before they have set themselves up to that particular sugar environment?

I have just realised that I have been basing my sugar content on the ABW and not an ABV result from an online calculator. Including all the fruit, juice, sultanas etc, there should be 1.695994kg of sugar, in 5L of solution once adding the final sugar addition and top up water. I've now (hopefully correctly) worked out that 1.695994kg of sugar will produce a starting gravity of 1.130 and a potential alcohol content of 17.3% if FG is 1.0. I was expecting 13.8%!

I was scaling the current expected ABV by "sharing" the sugar between 0 and 13.8, so I was thinking it was only at 7.7, but it is actually at about 11.7% now. I thought I could taste and smell a hotness of alcohol but I had convinced myself that was just raw ginger doing it's thing. It just so happens to 67.6% of the fermentables, 1% above 2/3 of the fermentables! hahah ! I would like to knock 20 more points off it and take it to around 14%. It will be very sweet still then but that's good.

That is good about the sugars still being fermentable. Thank you for that, and also for the putting my mind at ease about the floating bits.
I did have a closed fermentation vessel: I shook things to get a lot of oxygen dissolved, but I have since read that this can only bring a certain amount of oxygen into the dissolve liquid (and it's just short of what is ideal for fermenting wort nevermind wine must!)