two small batches quit fermenting too soon

[alwayslearnin']

On 5/20 I started four small batches of wine:
Peach (one gallon), quit fermenting 5/24, deflated balloon
Orange (52 oz), quit fermenting 5/22, deflated balloon
Apple (64 oz), still going strong 5/24
Spiced Apple (one gallon), still going strong 5/24
Should I add more yeast to the two that quit?
Note: I can't afford all the equipment so I am doing these cheaply & with balloons. Please, no rude remarks.

 

[DoctorCAD]

Well, here's the problem...without a hydrometer, every answer will be a guess. You could have made 3 bottles and the money for the fourth could have bought you a hydrometer.

 

[alwayslearnin']

Well, here's the problem...without a hydrometer, every answer will be a guess. You could have made 3 bottles and the money for the fourth could have bought you a hydrometer.

I can't afford a hydrometer. I used supplies (juice, sugar, etc) that I already had in the cupboards. I am on a limited fixed income.
I will toss out the orange wine and peach wine.

 

[alwayslearnin']

Guess because I don't have the 'proper equipment' I don't belong in this group. Looks like no one started as a newbie using spring water gallons & balloons. Just wanted some help.

 

[alwayslearnin']

Found helpful suggestions on another site that isn't a forum.

 

[Seamonkey84]

Gotta give people time to read and respond through the day. Patience is everything in this hobby.
Don’t toss it, just make sure your ballon is providing a good seal. Depending on how much sugar you did or didn’t added, it could just be done fermenting. Without having some more information about your mix no one can tell you anything.
Adding more yeast won’t do anything, but checking your seals, and just leave it alone should be fine. Let it sit until it clears on its own.

 

[Seamonkey84]

 

[alwayslearnin']

The other guy ignored the fact that I had said "I can't afford all the equipment so I am doing these cheaply & with balloons."
I did find some helpful suggestions on another site. But here are the ingredients for the Orange wine:
Orange Juice (52 oz bottle)
1/2 cup sugar
yeast
1 lemon, sliced
This is actually a simple gallon apple wine recipe but used Organic Orange Juice (high pulp) in place of the apple juice and cut the sugar in half & added a lemon. I did the same thing for the Peach Wine (gallon), except I used a 16 oz can of clingy sliced peaches, no lemon:
1 can of sliced peaches (16 oz)
1 cup of sugar
2 teaspoons of yeast
1 gallon of spring water

 

[smithsh]

On 5/20 I started four small batches of wine:
Peach (one gallon), quit fermenting 5/24, deflated balloon
Orange (52 oz), quit fermenting 5/22, deflated balloon
Apple (64 oz), still going strong 5/24
Spiced Apple (one gallon), still going strong 5/24
Should I add more yeast to the two that quit?
Note: I can't afford all the equipment so I am doing these cheaply & with balloons. Please, no rude remarks.

I started out same as you, except that I found an airlock for $1 at a local store and a rubber grommet for $0.50 and drilled a hole in the plastic screw on lid for the juice container. So I never used balloons, but I can tell you my experiences from those early days till now. First of all, depending on the yeast you used and the temperature of the place where you are fermenting, 4 days is plenty of time for some wines to be finished with fermentation. Some will take weeks. But in either case they need to sit for several days or longer after the initial fermentation is complete to give the yeast time to clean up other stuff. I have found that leaving wines on the lees (the yeast cake at the bottom) doesn't really produce any crazy off flavors, so my recommendation for your first few batches is to just leave it like it is for a few weeks and let it clear up. Something like orange juice may never really clear to the point you can see through it but it will start looking more like wine and less like cloudy nastiness and you'll see more stuff settling at the bottom. This hobby is all about patience. I wouldn't throw anything out this early.

Secondly, just because the balloon is deflated does not mean that it is done fermenting. It more likely means that fermentation has slowed to a crawl (this happens at the end) and the balloon is leaking. Did you pin prick the balloon? If so, then your fermentation is just slower than the co2 can escape the pin prick. If not, you just have a small leak on the balloon to jug seal. Either way, I would not be concerned. If it fermented vigorously for 4 days then you have plenty of alcohol in that jug. Let it sit for 4-6 weeks and then give it a taste. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

My very first batch I ever fermented was some Juicy Juice blueberry with table sugar added and yeast was Fleischman's Active Dry bread yeast. Taste was actually not too bad. It inspired me to make many more varieties, and I moved on to mead and then beer and really enjoy it all. I still make the occasional Juicy Juice wine fermented in the original container! But I held onto a bottle of that very first batch (I bottled in a 375ml glass bottle using a cork) and after 18 months it was 10x better than when I first tried it. So if you have a way to put some of these back, wine is always always always better with age. That being said, many of my wines were finished off within a few weeks of bottling them, so there is no harm in just enjoying them as-is!

 

[Seamonkey84]

Yeast also has a hard time with very acidic environments, so the orange one may have stalled due to that. On top of the emon juice you added, the brew drops in ph naturally as the ferment builds up co2

 

[Petstaff]

Hello,
It's me, alwayslearnin'. Had to start a new account because when I logged in with my old one I would get a blank page. Every time. So, the photo is of my 4 small batches in a cabinet in the kitchen. I read somewhere that you can use a gram (pinch?) of gelatin to clear up orange wine. Might start a coffee wine. lol Sounds interesting. Last year I did make a couple batches of mead with this system (cheap with balloons). They were good. A berry & JOAM. That berry! May do that one again. lol