A tale of two fruit wines

[Big_Ron]

Hello,

I am just looking for some words of wisdom on my current brewing situation.

So, back at the start of autumn I picked a bunch of blackberries from the allotment to have a good at my first fruit wine. Followed a 5L recipe (about 1.5kg of fruit and sugar) and got brewing. After a week in the primary in a hot box (cool both with a heat pad hooked up to a thermostat) at about 22 degrees I moved the wine into a demijohn. The wine has been slowly bubbling away since and is still at and SG of about 1.030 so presumably still has some fermentation to go.

Two weekends ago, been suckers to the ‘you have to wait until after the first frost to pick sloes’ fallacy, we headed to our coveted spot and picked a mega load. Having more than enough sloes for the fool-proof Christmas sloe gin, I still had just over 1.6kg left. So with this, and about 300g of elderberries from the freezer I went about making some more wine. Same situation as before, however left for an extra day in the primary (had ran out of bruclens and wilkos was shut). A hydrometer reading read almost bang on 1.000 and there was no visible activity in the demijohn. As fermentation has seemingly finished, I stabilised the wine and back sweetened to about 1.010 (it still tasted very dry).

Would anyone have any ideas as to why the wines both came out of primary fermentation at completely different stages? And more importantly are one of the wines wrong? As it stands I have more faith in the blackberry wine. Has baffled me a bit as the temperature was controlled for both brews, I can’t think of any other variable that could make such a big difference.

I’ll keep an eye on the blackberry and stabilise when appropriate. While I’m asking questions how long should I leave to sloe wine in the secondary before bottling?

sorry for the long post, any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Aaron

 

[DavieC]

Hi Aaron, what type of yeast did you use for the blackberry,also did you take the original gravity reading? It sounds like the sloe fermented ok although .990/995 is usual.Ive never backsweetened but did you use sugar or a non fermentible sweetener? I'm sure I've read on here that stabilizer doesn't always guarantee completely neutralising the yeast although that might be incorrect.Hopefully someone with more experience will add advice.

 

[Moonraker]

I've got two DJs of wine on the go at the moment that are exactly the same ingredients, prepared at the same time in the same way with the same yeast and same OG, yet one has been blubbing at about twice the rate of the other. I am very interested to see how they compare when done, experimentation, variation and unexpected outcomes are part of the joy of homebrewing in my book. A couple of months back I did 5 DJs of cider again all at the same time and all seemingly identical, yet the flavour of each DJ has been subtly different when it came to bottling them.

 

[Big_Ron]

Hi Aaron, what type of yeast did you use for the blackberry,also did you take the original gravity reading? It sounds like the sloe fermented ok although .990/995 is usual.Ive never backsweetened but did you use sugar or a non fermentible sweetener? I'm sure I've read on herethat stabilizer doesn't always guarantee completely neutralising the yeast although that might be incorrect.Hopefully someone with more experience will add advice.

I didn’t take OG readings unfortunately. Got too carried away with excitement both times and completely forgot. I sweetened with sugar and honey following some internet advice that implied the stabliser would make it okay. Will have to keep an eye on it.

do you think the blackberry wine is more concerning then. I just used universal wine yeast from Wilkos. Haven’t got any brewshops in Brum and don’t have the foresight to order stuff online. Wilkos is the only options

 

[DavieC]

The Wilko yeast is usually good so wouldn't have thought it was that if it was in date, does seem to be taking its time though if it's been a few weeks and still only at 1030...I'd maybe give the dj a swirl, sometimes works for beer if it's stalled ,not sure about the wine as I've not had any problems.Possibly try a little warmer to see if that gets it going again.

 

[Wynott]

As you don't know the O.G. of the two, I am wondering if there was perphaps more natural sweetness in the blackberries than the sloe/elderberries? Just a thought...