Strawberry Wine POOOOOF

[mrchaos101]

Sharing my Story here...

So I have a batch of REAL strawberry wine going. Berries were on sale for like $1.20/lb. I put about 16lbs of berries in it... added sugar (cant remember amount... think it was a Jack Keller Recipe that called for 12lbs)
I am doing a 6.5gal batch.

After 1 week fermentation slowed down BIG TIME...thought it was good enough to put into primary...removed the fruit on top and transferred the rest to a 6.5gal carboy.

After about another week the fermentation slowed down a lot to almost nothing. So I elected to rack it and get a lil sediment off the bottom. THIS racking...caused the fermentation to kick up BIG TIME. Violent even. It has been this way for the last 2 weeks.

I have never had a wine go so slow at fermentation...in my mind it should be working on clearing/aging by now. I thought perhaps the yeast was old and weak.... perhaps the yeast was stressed out.... I may not have allowed it to have enough O2 long enough when it was started in the fermentation bucket.

SO LAST NIGHT lol.....

I dumped a 2nd pack of the blue package of red start yeast. Gave it about 20 min to mix in... THEN added yeast nutrients. Then stirred the hell out of it to try and get some more air in there and mix any yeast/sugar on the bottom back into the game.

Went to watch tv for about 45 min came back... the rubber stopper and bubbler were shot off clear across the counter. Bubbler was full of wine/sediment... I had stuff all over the place. I cleaned up the mess and removed some volume from the carboy for now. Air lock is back on but man it is going crazy.

It is in an extremely violent fermentation right now. My Welches Grape never did anything like this LOL.

I never took any reading sorry cant give you that information.

 

[lukebuz]

do you own a hydrometer??

 

[Chef-Ryan]

I could go deep into some science here but .. do you own a hydrometer (brix or SG is fine)

 

[mrchaos101]

I could go deep into some science here but .. do you own a hydrometer (brix or SG is fine)

I do. I just didn't take any readings for what ever reason. I don't have a starting SG.

 

[mrchaos101]

Right now it is burping like 3 times per second. It is still going good....and we are going into week 3. Not sure about this one.

 

[lukebuz]

yeah dude. Cause you didn't use your hydrometer.

 

[bernardsmith]

The issue may not be fermentation. If you add powder to a carboy filled with liquid and CO2 you create a volcano because of what is called nucleation - In other words, the gas absorbed in the liquid collects around the edges of the powder and forms bubbles large enough to escape the liquid. The only way you can know whether you are observing your wine degas because you added nutrient (and possibly dry yeast) or observing the wine fermenting is if you take a reading of the sugar content of the wine.
But that said, you are making a strawberry wine using about 2 lbs of berries per gallon? Unless these are incredibly flavor rich strawberries I don't know that the wine will be as full of flavor as you imagine. Last time I made a strawberry wine I used about 10 lbs of fruit per gallon.

 

[mrchaos101]

I know. Should have measured.

I can get a measurement to night and post where it currently is if you think that would help?

It is still very much active.... I am thinking I will rack it again to night to get more of the sediment off the bottom.