Advice please

[Steve k]

Evening all.

A couple of quick questions I hope someone can help with.

i) A couple of my maturing bottled wines have started throwing a fine dusty sediment, they are about 3 months in the bottle. Is this normal?

ii) I have acquired a small 150g pot of "Vanilla Sugar" and I quite fancy using it in my Coffee wine. Has anyone used this stuff before?

Cheers

Steve

 

[Steve k]

**Update**

The Vanilla Sugar is fermenting.

I used:

20g Nescafe
150g Vanilla Sugar
850g Sugar
15g Citric Acid
15g Nutriant
30ml Vanilla Essence
Youngs Super Wine Compound Yeast.

my kitchen smells like an Italian coffee shop. :party:

Can't wait for christmas to try it.

Steve

 

[Moley]

i) A couple of my maturing bottled wines have started throwing a fine dusty sediment, they are about 3 months in the bottle. Is this normal?

It can happen, even if your wine was perfectly clear and aged in bulk for a few months before bottling. I opened an '09 Plum a few nights back and it had a fine line down the side of the bottle. Decant slowly and carefully to a fresh bottle before serving.

 

[Steve k]

Cheers.

Out of the five bottles from the same brew, two are furry. I'll be drinking them soon, should be ok.

Steve

 

[Steve k]

It seems my coffee wine is not well...

I bought a hydrometer today and it reads 1.030, could this be normal for 6 weeks using the above ingredients? I have no idea what it started off at.

It is still bubbling through the airlock but very slowly and with no power to it. Visually inside the demijohn is almost like a really, really lethargic pint of Guinness settling I think I might have what they call a "stuck ferment"....or is this normal? I am still very new to this game.
I have put a pinch of nutrient and citric acid in then given it a good shake to see if that livens it up a bit. It didn't. :hmm:

Cheers

Steve

**Edit** funnily enough it tastes of really sweet black coffee with vanilla, but too sweet for me to enjoy,

 

[Moley]

If it's a gallon then your OG would have been about 1.082

If the airlock's bubbling it isn't stuck.

Did the nutrient and citric go in from the start? What has the temperature been like?

It's going slower than the average but there's nothing for your yeasties to get particularly excited about.

Leave it alone, and somewhere warmish.

 

[Steve k]

Evening, thanks for the reply.

I did put the acid and nutrient in at the beginning. Being a beginner and thinking a bit too much, I thought some additional and a good shake might wake it up a bit.......suppose i'm more use to watching WOW types ferment away.

The demijohn is in my centrally heated utility room that contains a freezer and the boiler (and another 4 demijohns fermenting), so i'm prety sure that the temperature isn't the problem.

I must have fallen for that classic wine makers mistake....impatience..

Cheers

Steve

 

[Steve k]

Still not happy with this one....

it has continued to ferment very, very slowly. I have put my logical head on and assumed that since the central heating has been switched off (the boiler and a radiator is in my brew/utility room), the temp in the room must have fallen. So I checked.

The room temp is now 18°C, in central heating season it is usually around 23°C.

As a check I have stood the demi in a bucket of warm water and low and behold it has started bubbling away. Is this fermentation starting again or do you think it could be a thermal effect?
Secondly will it still be ok to ferment it out this way considering when the brew was started?

Cheers

Steve

 

[BarnsleyBrewer]

How did it end?

 

[Steve k]

How did it end?

not sure what you mean guv'ner?

I literally just did it 5 minutes before you posted.

 

[BarnsleyBrewer]

How did it end?

not sure what you mean guv'ner?

I literally just did it 5 minutes before you posted.

Sorry
Didn't notice the date/time.

BB

 

[Damsonite]

There's nothing at all wrong in fermenting slowly...as Moley said, if the airlock's going, even slowly, then it's not stuck, and your Youngs' Super would probably be most comfortable with a temperature between 19 - 26 degrees.

This said, if you WANT to achive a stuck fermentation then carry on dunking the DJ in and out of warm water - your yeast'll probably conk out from good old plain shock. Young's Super definitely has hidden qualities but for all it's rock'n'roll super-stardom it's a temperamental b**tard.

Best bet's to stop fiddlin' about with it and let it do its' job, and yep, put it all down to impatience - Christmas is a while away yet though wouldn't a coffee wine take longer than 6 months to properly mature, anyway?

 

[Steve k]

Yesterday i put my plumb wine in the office and noticed that the coffee wine has awaken. :clap:
it is happily fizzing away again. :hmm:

Steve.

 

[Steve k]

This coffee wine is still fermenting.....nearly a year. Is this a record??

Steve

 

[Leo]

you return to this thread on april first?
hmm

 

[Steve k]

you return to this thread on april first?
hmm

Only a fool would fall for April fools tricks, the clue is in the name. Are you an "April Fool"?

The fact is the wine is still fermenting.

Steve

 

[Crastney]

don't see why not.

if there is still sugar, and not too high an abv, and the yeast are still alive... it could happen.

my plum wine has been fermenting for 6 months (though not 'actively' all of the time - I did actually have a stuck ferment).