When to Add Yeast?

[vbkid]

So I am making a pretty standard strawberry wine much like these recipes:
http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/reques5.asp

I want to add 2 campden tablets to 2 gallons of the initial mixture to make sure everything is sterilized well, and am wondering how long I need to wait to add in the yeast?

 

[slimbiggins]

24hrs is pretty standard. Don't forget to follow the instructions on the pkg

 

[vbkid]

To avoid flooding the forum with new topics, I'll just post my additional question here...
How long should active fermentation last?
Namely, my coffee wine's airlock was bubbling maybe once a second for the first week and a half or so, and has slowed to maybe once every 2 seconds already. Should it have slowed that fast? Is there anything I need to do to reenergize it?

 

[damdaman]

To avoid flooding the forum with new topics, I'll just post my additional question here...
How long should active fermentation last?
Namely, my coffee wine's airlock was bubbling maybe once a second for the first week and a half or so, and has slowed to maybe once every 2 seconds already. Should it have slowed that fast? Is there anything I need to do to reenergize it?

Sounds fine, but recipe and gravity readings are the only way to tell for sure.

 

[ACbrewer]

To avoid flooding the forum with new topics, I'll just post my additional question here...
How long should active fermentation last?
Namely, my coffee wine's airlock was bubbling maybe once a second for the first week and a half or so, and has slowed to maybe once every 2 seconds already. Should it have slowed that fast? Is there anything I need to do to reenergize it?

I agree with the previous poster on the ferment, but wish to add this.

typical yeast progression. - there is overlap of the phases.
lag phase - yeast multiplies and increases count until it reaches saturation density cells per unit volume. Typically this goes from pitch to 24 hours or even longer. Peaking around 12 hours in typical.
Ferment/active phase - beginning around 12 hours and going for several days- this depends largely on the gravities - even weeks. This is when between 90 to 95% of the sugar is consumed.
Clean up - the last bit of gravity points are used up and yeast pickup other chemicals squeezing out the last bit of energy that they can.

So I'd guess if your yeast is running slow - because of strain and or temp, and being a wine, so higher gravities, that going out 2 weeks or more is normal. Infact most fo the wine kit instructions I've seen suggest that after 2 weeks, the gravity should be around 20% of OG. Thus more fermenting to take place.

A long way to say, your are fine.

 

[vbkid]

So it's day 4 of Strawberry wine in the initial fermentation bucket, stirring daily. I wash the stirrer REALLY well before each time, but am still just nervous that I won't know when/if the wine goes bad in the bucket. Any advice?

 

[Yooper]

So it's day 4 of Strawberry wine in the initial fermentation bucket, stirring daily. I wash the stirrer REALLY well before each time, but am still just nervous that I won't know when/if the wine goes bad in the bucket. Any advice?

Sanitize anything you use that will touch the wine. Anything. If it's not sanitized, you may be making vinegar.

 

[vbkid]

Sanitize anything you use that will touch the wine. Anything. If it's not sanitized, you may be making vinegar.

Any warning signs to look out for if it starts to vinegarize? Any chance to save wine once it does?

 

[Yooper]

Any warning signs to look out for if it starts to vinegarize? Any chance to save wine once it does?

No.

Just make sure anything that touches the wine is sanitary, and that once fermentation slows that it's topped up and airlocked appropriately and you can avoid contamination.

 

[ACbrewer]

Any warning signs to look out for if it starts to vinegarize? Any chance to save wine once it does?

Strawberry vienerette salad dressing?

 

[vbkid]

I just bottled a gallon of welches concentrate wine (and apple peach) that I'm assuming turned out well in that it tastes like a very dry white. My question, what do I need to do to backsweeten a few bottles?

 

[ACbrewer]

vbkid -
to backsweeten a few bottles? Well what I would do is before bottling stablize with Potasium Sorbate and Metabisulfate. Then I'd add sugar and let sit for a few days and then bottles.

What you should so? addthe Sorbate and Sulfate to your current bottles and add a little sugar.

How sweet do you want it? one recomendation is to pour out measured amounts of wine, add sugar to them - measured - sample and test. work out the math and add that to each bottle - so if you do 1 oz of wine, and 1gr of sugar and that is good, you'd add 25 gr of sugar to each bottle.

Alternativily if you know you FG, and have a guess at the desired sweetend FG (typically <1 =dry 1 to 1.010 =semi sweet and above 1.010 is sweet or something like that). you can also work math for that. 1lb of sugar has 46 points for a gallon of wine.

 

[vbkid]

I transferred my Strawberry wine into 2 growlers last night, topping one off with simple syrup. Should I be worried at all that when I glanced this morning they didn't appear to be bubbling in the airlock? I *think* it smelled fine during transfer last night, but don't have enough experience to be sure.

 

[ACbrewer]

If they have been stablized - ie most of the yeast removed and the rest put to dormancy, then you shouldn't have any airlock activity, Infact none is good, however airlock activity is NOT the measure of fermentation, changes in gravity tell you if sugar is being consumed and turned into alcohol, so get a gravity reading and watch it change or not change.