stuck ferment -- maybe a good thing?

[GeneDaniels1963]

My wife likes sweet, low ABV fruit wine. So the plan was to make a blackberry must with potential of about 12% that I can backsweeten with must I reserved (in freezer). In the end I was aiming for a sweet (1.020-1.025) wine of around 8 or 9%

Well, the ferment has stalled for 5 days now. It is stuck at 1.026, and calculates out to 7.8%. Almost spot on what I wanted as a finished product! But the ferment is stalled, not finished.

So, question is, how stable is a stalled ferment? Can I let it sit for a few weeks, and if it still does not move, just store it in the fridge in a couple of plastic bottles? Or should I hit it with sorbate and Campden as well?

(FYI, this is only a small batch. That plus the low ABV means she will drink it fresh and it will only last 3-4 months)

 

[Blacksmith1]

I would stabilize it just in case. But that's because I don't gamble.

 

[Seamonkey84]

If it’s stopped for more than a week, you can prob safely stabilize it with Sorbate and sulfite. Otherwise there’s the chance it’ll restart if you stir it up or rack it.
Otherwise, give it a good degassing and add nutrients or energizer and see what happens.

 

[bernardsmith]

I tend to be rather risk averse and if a wine has stalled and you do not know why then my money is on that wine refermenting in the bottle (Murphy's Law). My approach is to see if I can restart the fermentation but upending the process (creating a new starter with fresh yeast and then slowly doubling the volume of the starter by adding from the stalled wine and waiting to be sure the stalled sample you have added to the vigorous starter is vigorously fermenting to almost dry before again doubling the starter batch.. The idea being to ferment to brut dry your wine and so back sweeten it as you originally planned... some "opportunities" are not real but are questionable disasters in the making..

 

[GeneDaniels1963]

"questionable disasters in the making" sounds like what I have!

I think I will rack it, energize it, and see if it restarts.