new homemade winemaker

[susanne]

Hi again. Logged on a couple of days ago to ask for help about my 2 1 gallon demis. They have been fermenting for 8 days and had kind of slowed down for the past 2 days. I have used fresh grapes/concentrate juice. 1lb of sugar to the lst gallon and 1 1/2 sugar to the 2nd gallon. Being a novice, I have used bakers yeast! I have steralized everything and today because i could not see any bubbles in the airlock, even though in one of the containers there is loads of frothing going on and the 2nd container still have fermentation going on with showing in the airlock. I then drained both off carefully through gauze and refilled in the pet demis. I had a tiny sip of one of them and noticed it was extremely strong. This is the one with more concentrate. In the other I have added 1/4 tsp of Youngs yeast and stirred.

Basically now, I have not a clue what to do. Need your help.

 

[31bb3]

Moley is the wine guru I'm sure he will be on soon I can't really help but he will :thumb:

 

[oldbloke]

8 days is fast, even for the temperatures we've had lately. I'd say just wait. Maybe add some real wine yeast to the one that doesn't have any - the baker's yeast may not be able to reach wine levels of alcohol, and may not give the best flavour.
Do you have a hydrometer? When you really really think it's given up, take a sample and see if it's down to less than 1.000. Drink the sample - you can't put it back in, it's contaminated.
1.5lb sugar isn't much, unless there's at least another 1/2lb in the grapes and concentrate. So maybe it /is/ done, but only about 10%
Has it cleared?

 

[bobsbeer]

Hi Susanne, welcome to the forum. First question do you have a hydrometer? If so what was your starting readings? If not you need to get one asap, as they are the most important piece of kit you will ever buy for winemaking and only cost a few quid. They probably do taste strong if you used grape juice, concentrate and sugar without adding water. It's difficult to guess what your sugar ratio is but for reference if you can add all the sugar you added plus the sugar in the concentrate and the grapes and divide by your volume in liters you will get a total sugar per liter. A good starting gravity would be about 1.090-1.095 which would give you about 12-13% alcohol. For that you need about 250g sugar per litre.

But for now I would leave your wine in the DJ's with the airlock on for another week. If you have a hydrometer take a reading. You will be able to see where you are. If not you have time to get one. A wine will finish fermenting at about .990, and be dry to the taste, but if you have too much sugar and with your bakers yeast it may not get so low and stop nearer to 1.000. But you never know. Never rely on the bubbles to tell when fermentation has finished as you often don't get a good seal and co2 escapes. Use your hydrometer.

Let us know how you get on and ask away if you are unsure what to do next. But once your wine has finished fermenting it is time to rack of the sludge (lees) and then add a campden tablet to each DJ plus a 1/2 teaspoon of potassium sorbate. This will stop any further fermentation and allow your wine to clear.

 

[EskiBrew]

Thanks for posting susanne :thumb:
There are some knowledgable people here regarding wine (I know nothing about wine) who will help you out :

 

[Vossy1]

Welcome aboard Suzanne :thumb:

 

[BigYin]

Welcome to the forum Suzanne :

Not sure how much alcohol a baking yeast will tolerate, so that ferment might stop early? It's hard to have too much yeast, so I think some wine yeast wouldn't go amiss.

On the timings front, the main weapon in your armoury is patience :thumb:

Best of luck, and remember, the only daft questions are the ones you don't ask :mrgreen: