Youngs peach wine gone wrong?

[Babbajabba]

We have recently started making wine. We thought we would start slow with a few kits and work up to doing something more complicated after we got into the flow of things.

Currently we have 4 DJ on the go. (All kit wine) Peach, strawberry, elderflower and rose.

The Elderflower and rose are still bubbling away after about 5 days, the strawberry having bubbled like mad and nearly frothing over, but now stopped. However, the Peach has been pretty quiet. There has been plenty of froth but no really action with the air lock. It went from clear to very cloudy within 3 days and now seems to be thick with sludge at the bottom, with a fine froth on top.

All the wines are in the airing cupboard. The temperature is a steady 25 -26 degrees and as I say, the other wines seem to be fine.

We've tested it with a hydrometer, and the kit says we are to wait for a consistent reading of 1004 to 1010 over two days. The test we done barely scraped 10!
We also tested a few drops with a vinometre and got 5% vol.

Please see attached photo's for what the sludge looks like.
What could have gone wrong?

 

[Djtrouble1982]

If it doubt just leave it alone for a few more days, that seems to be the advice for almost any problems lol

 

[Casey76]

There has been plenty of froth but no really action with the air lock. It went from clear to very cloudy within 3 days and now seems to be thick with sludge at the bottom, with a fine froth on top.

That sounds perfectly normal. First of all I'd check your bung for any splits, and to make sure that your airlock is fitted securely in the bung. It sounds as if there isn't a complete seal.

I don't have any experience with the youngs kits, but if the yeast and nutrient packed contained in the kit also had bentonite in it, then the "sludge" on the bottom is also perfectly normal, and looks like what is left in my lees when using Youngs super wine yeast compound.

Another point, is that 25-26°C is very warm for fermentation, and your wine would be better off if you could reduce the temps to a max of 22-24. The fermentation will go faster at the higher temps, but overly fast fermentation is not very good for your wine, and can lead to off flavours.

Good luck :)

 

[Babbajabba]

I'll check the bung tonight. But as a matter of fact the wine has actually started to clear at the upper portion. I'll keep an eye on it and try to work on reducing the temperature too. I did look in the pre mix can and it did actually have some scratches through the liner and to the metal. This isn't apparent in the other cans so I'm starting to wonder if it could have contaminated it then.

Many thanks

 

[Casey76]

But as a matter of fact the wine has actually started to clear at the upper portion.

I've also found that when there is bentonite in the primary fermentation. This is because the bentonite helps to drop out all of the solids earlier than without it.

I'd take another gravity reading and wee what it is. If it is still high (I think you said it is still 1.010 - well actually this is classed as "sweet" wine), it might be worth either adding some nutrient, to see if you can get the yeast to wake up a bit.

Did you take an OG (original gravity) reading at all?

 

[Babbajabba]

Didn't take an original reading as the instructions didn't say to. Did take a vino meter reading to see if anything was happening and there is barely any alcohol in it at all. Did use the super yeast compound stuff that came in the kit, so it's good to hear that it tends to leave a lot of sludge. Will also open the airing cupboard door a jar so it gets the temperature down a bit.

 

[Moley]

All looks and sounds quite normal to me, ignore any timescale your kit instructions tell you, or at least double it.

Any information you get from a vinometer is probably worthless.