10 & 7 day old ferm's smelling of vinegar already..thoughts?

Shop deals on ebay
shop deals on amazon
Advertise with us
The Homebrew Forum

Help Support The Homebrew Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
KevinH

KevinH

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 11, 2013
Messages
100
Reaction score
0
Okay, it's my first brew and I expect problems but I'll persevere!

My 10 day old black cherry smells of vinegar - I haven't seen vigorous fermentation but I'll add some campden tablets in. 10 days is not too far in, is it?

My 7 day old pear wine smells slightly of vinegar. Will treat with campden's again.

I was quite convinced my cleaning was good. Perhaps I need to re-double my efforts.

Any thoughts, please?

Cheers,
Kevin
 
how does it taste ?

take some SG readings and then drink the sample in the trial jar :thumb:
 
Thanks for posting, Godfrey.

Well....

The pear wine tastes good! A slight attack on the nose and the SG is 208 / 10.5%. I have the remaining half of the pear/sugar syrup left to add in by Sunday.

the Black Cherry has me stumped - the reading is zero as in the same as if it was water. It tastes as bad as the lynching mob that comes to assault one's nose. It cannot be, could it, that no sugar was added? I thought I had but I've had a crazy couple of weeks...I'm starting to doubt myself! I'm beginning to do my wine diaries online here to remember better. There's 20 litres of it. What would you do, please?
 
so the pears are good :thumb: and the smell will go in time

I doubt the cherries were zero to start as even the fruit will have ferment able sugar
is there much slurry ?
 
No, there doesn't seem to be much slurry. I give the carboy a shake every day.

I appreciate your help and would like to know how to go from here, please.
 
I have decided to bin the cherry wine thus closing this thread.

Thanks to all those who helped.
 
Don't bin it based on smell, work on taste.

As co2 dissolves in in moisture producing an acid it can produce an acidic compound in your nose which smells like vinegar.
 
Cheers, Jeltz - the taste was rank - as stated in the above posting.

I do appreciate your time to post. To the bin it goes.
 
always worth leaving it to see what happens

worst case you end up binning it but learn something from the experience

i guess you have learned to take the SG before adding yeast on this occasion
 
A reading of ‘zero’ or rather 1.000 might be a final reading for a medium wine but doesn't mean it's the same as water, it's just that you've got some alcohol but there's still some residual sugar. If that sugar gets used up then the reading drops below ‘zero’ into the 0.990s

Fermentation can produce some very funny smells including vinegar and rotten eggs. This can be quite normal, according to your ingredients, and doesn't necessarily mean your wine is destined for the drain. Also, fresh wine tastes awful, so if you haven't tipped it away yet, see what it's like in a fortnight's time.
 
To all,

Thanks *enormously* for your words of caution.

Before I had time to tip the black cherry I had to go do some urgent business which took me away for the day. All things considered, it won't hurt me to leave it a while and see what happens - after all I can only learn from it, whether it be good or bad. I will certainly let you know what happens over time.

Many thanks to all for your combined support. It's a great place to be. :cheers:
 

Similar threads

St00
St00s Br00 Days
2 3
Replies
53
Views
4K
St00
St00
AnimatedGIF
Experimenting with impatience
Replies
8
Views
403
RichardM
RichardM
stripeyjoe
Joe's Bob the Discobrewshed brew days
Replies
14
Views
2K
stripeyjoe
stripeyjoe
Stephenj
stephenj brew day
Replies
4
Views
610
Stephenj
Stephenj
Benfleet Brewery
Mark K’s Brewdays
8 9 10
Replies
198
Views
14K
Benfleet Brewery
Benfleet Brewery

Latest posts

Back
Top