Watermelon Wine - Stopped Dead

[LedBoots]

I put up a 5 gallon batch of watermelon wine Saturday morning. I'm using an old "country" recipe given to me by an elderly friend. The recipe is basically a lot of fruit, sugar and water, and doesn't call for any additives or nutrients of any sort.

I Pitched Red Star Champagne yeast on it that morning. There was no activity from it all day Saturday, but by early Sunday morning it was bubbling hard, and was still going strong when I went to bed Sunday night. I didn't check on it Monday morning before I went to work, but when I got home I saw that it had stopped dead. I asked the wife and she said she wasn't exactly sure of what time she looked in on it, but that it hadn't been bubbling all day as far as she knew. I let it sit, just to see if things might pick back up, but there was nothing happening this morning.

Looking for ideas on kick starting things again. This is my first time using this yeast, so I don't know what it needs. I was thinking maybe just giving it a stir to see if it wakes things up, but figured I'd ask here for some advice first.

Any thoughts?

 

[bucketnative]

It could be done... Have you taken any specific gravity readings? That's the ultimate arbiter of "done".

 

[LedBoots]

It could be done... Have you taken any specific gravity readings? That's the ultimate arbiter of "done".

Unfortunately, in a rush to get things done, I didn't take any SG readings before I put it up. I've never considered it could be done. Does this yeast work that quickly?

 

[LedBoots]

I think I may have figured out the issue. I think I choked out the yeast. I had left a lot of fruit pulp in the must when I pitched the yeast. It had actually floated to the top and created a thick cap. I scooped it out and gave it a good stir, and it's cooking again. I guess I'll just keep an eye on it.

 

[LedBoots]

Well, two days later and it's stopped again

Decided to give it a taste. It looks odd (opaque pink color akin to pepto bismol) but smells good. Doesn't smell "off" at all. Tasted it and you can definitely taste alcohol, just not very much. It is, however, tasting dry already. Honestly, I'm thinking it's stalling because the yeast is out of food. It doesn't taste done by any means, but it also doesn't taste like there's any "extra" sugar there for the yeast to work on.

I started with 10lbs of sugar, 2 gallons of crushed fruit (much of which has now been removed) and 4 gallons of water. Gonna have to rethink this a little...add more/different fruit and maybe pitch yeast again? Or maybe just add more sugar and some Energizer.

 

[LedBoots]

Well, after reading what others have done (just noticed the 'Similar Threads' below) and resources found (http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/watermel.asp), I think I have a grasp on a couple mistakes I made with this.

First, topped it up with way too much water. From what I've read, watermelon juice isn't very robust on it's own. Diluting it with water as much as I did thins it down way too much to retain any body or flavor. Any successful batches I've read about start with pure watermelon juice only, or watermelon plus another fruit to give it some legs.

Second was basically lack of education on my part. Being new to scratch winemaking, I had no inkling what tannins, acids or nutrients are needed. I should've done more research in that regard...and apparently I need a PH tester.

At any rate, I'm marching on with this experiment in learning
Continuing on with my theory that the yeast ran out of food, yesterday I added another 4lbs of sugar and 2 teaspoons of Yeast Energizer to see if I could kickstart things and get it going again. It is bubbling again at a nice stead pace, and has been since yesterday evening. We'll see how it goes from here.

 

[LedBoots]

Okay, so its been bubbling steadily since I added the Energizer and extra sugar last Friday. I wanted to get an idea what was going on so I threw my hydrometer in there and it was measuring around 1.030.

It still tastes somewhat sweet, but there is also a definite flavor of alcohol. It smells "yeasty" though to me. Like it still has a long way to be considered drinkable.

I need to know if there is anything I can do, or anything specific to look for, to tell the difference between legitimate yeast fermentation or spoilage?

 

[DoctorCAD]

Fermentation IS spoilage...just a controlled version of it.

Relax...wine has been making itself for centuries. You've got a long time to sit around while that happens.

 

[LedBoots]

Fermentation IS spoilage...just a controlled version of it.

Relax...wine has been making itself for centuries. You've got a long time to sit around while that happens.

Thanks, I guess I'm just a little anxious. The only other home brewing I've done was a few beer extract kits and a Nectar of the Gods mead kit. All that stuff was pretty much mapped out start to finish, This is a whole new animal to me

I'll let 'er go and see what comes of it.

 

[bernardsmith]

Excluding any sugar from the watermelon, 10lbs of sugar in 5 gallons will produce a starting gravity of about 1.080 (or a potential ABV of about 10.5%. Adding another 4 lbs will up the potential ABV to about 14 or 15% but given how "thin" in flavor watermelon is your wine may be seriously over balanced (alcohol to flavor).

 

[LedBoots]

Excluding any sugar from the watermelon, 10lbs of sugar in 5 gallons will produce a starting gravity of about 1.080 (or a potential ABV of about 10.5%. Adding another 4 lbs will up the potential ABV to about 14 or 15% but given how "thin" in flavor watermelon is your wine may be seriously over balanced (alcohol to flavor).

I think it's definitely on it's way to "over balanced". The alcohol flavor is already starting to overshadow what watermelon flavor there is.

 

[Mainer]

I think it's definitely on it's way to "over balanced". The alcohol flavor is already starting to overshadow what watermelon flavor there is.

Any sense in pitching a little watermelon extract to re-balance, or would that come off as fakey?

 

[LedBoots]

Any sense in pitching a little watermelon extract to re-balance, or would that come off as fakey?

Well, I bought some so whenever it finishes I'll find out

 

[LedBoots]

Update: Well, this batch went down the drain last night. After letting it set airlocked in the secondary for a couple weeks, the "hot" flavor was just getting worse. Too much even for the extract to cover. Alcohol was right up front as soon as it hit your tongue and completely drowned out any sense of fruit flavor that might've existed behind it. Oh well, lessons learned.

 

[DoctorCAD]

Uhhh...lesson not learned. The alcohol hotness will mellow with age or you could have made a 7% version and mixed them.

Its rare that wine needs to be dumped.

 

[LedBoots]

Uhhh...lesson not learned. The alcohol hotness will mellow with age or you could have made a 7% version and mixed them.

Its rare that wine needs to be dumped.

Perhaps. I may very well be wrong, but I just didn't get the sense, from what I tasted, that it would've eventually gotten that much better. The flavor just wasn't good. Let's just say it had a long way to go before I'd set a glass of that in front of a friend. Adding the extract had little impact on that impression.

There were a few mistakes I made early on that I now know not to do. I'll try it again in the future, with a few tweaks.