Plum wine clearing problems

[Forkbeard]

Made a plum wine according to the CJJ recipe, and can't get the bloody thing to clear with my usual finings. Is it just going to be a case of corking the DJ and leaving it to settle itself or will something like Bentonite do the job?

Gratis in advance...

 

[Moley]

Bentonite is used for protein hazes, and you ain't got that.

Your problem is a pectin haze, and CJJB's recipes involve boiling, which will only make matters worse.

Slightly warm half a mug of your wine (not too hot, only 30-40°C) and whisk in 2 tsps of pectolase. Return that to your wine and mix well. Leave in a cool place for a couple of weeks.

 

[Forkbeard]

Cheers as always Moley. :thumb:

 

[Crastney]

I have some plum and damson wine going, it's been in an FV for a few weeks now, but its only up to just below the 4 gallon level. I'm fairly sure that if I don't take the cork/bubler out it should still be ok, at the moment, but I don't have enough DJs to rack into for further settling.

my question is is it going to be ok to rack straight into wine bottles?

I don't really want to add other stuff like red grape juice, or fruit juice from cartons, as that spoils the idea of a fruit wine that I've made, with my own fair hands, right from the fruit to wine, if you see what I mean.

I do have 3DJs and a PET, but they've got cider going in them. I am going to get more apples this weekend so feasably I could make enough to get another 2 gallons, and put that all in one FV, and transfer the plum damson to the DJs - however, that may take a while transferring from one to another, cleaning, etc.

I'm also not entirely sure that I want to put all my apple juice together, as it's from three different sources...

so maybe I've already decided... anyway, just thoguht I'd ask about the wine, in case the apples don't go the way I've planned.

 

[Moley]

Tricky.

Is this in a closed fermenter or a lidded bucket?

As you say, it's fine at the moment while the top's on and it's under airlock, but when fermentation has finished and most of the sediment has dropped you will soon reach a point where it needs to be racked off the lees, and I think you've probably already reached it.

Bottling now probably isn't an option, it shouldn't be very cloudy but it's unlikely to be clear yet, so you will end up with more lees in the bottles, and it shouldn't sit on the lees for too long, see above.

Buy some more mineral water PETs, shop around and I'm sure you should be able to find 5 litre bottles for 79p.

4 gallons, after racking that's 3 x 5 litre plus a 2 litre water or pop bottle.

 

[Crastney]

I had yesterday off, so the situation has now changed.

My wife has been bringing home bags of apples from her boss who has loads not being used, and I have access to a lot more, so I intend to get some more pressing done.
yesterday, I siphoned all the cider into a pressure barrel, and then the wine into the DJs - 3 full and about 2 inches in the bottom of a PET, all now airlocked. Cider then siphoned back into the FV ('vessel' with lid and airlock, rather than bucket with lid) - this is at about the 3 gal level, but hopefully I'll end up wiht enough to make all full.

all containers sterilised, cleaned and rinsed between, and all now bubbling again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

and on Saturday I picked about 6 large carrier bags full of apples, some of them were very large - too large for the jaws of my fruit picker! These became enough juice to fill the DJ to the top, and extra in the PET.

so I now have 3 DJs full of plum and damson wine, one bubbling rather fast (the one with a deep layer of sediment), the other two nowhere near as quick hardly any sediment. I have an FV full to just above the start of the shoulder, with about 3 gal of cider which had nearly finished (1.002)plus the same ish of new juice, bubbling away fiercly, and a PET with a couple inches of plum and damson (which had gone down to 1.075) and half full of apple juice. I don't know if I'm going to get any more apples, so might have to top this up with AJ from LIDL (or other supermarket)

next task will be finding bottles, and I've realised that I no longer have a spare DJ for racking purposes (but I do have a pressure barrel, and two fermenting buckets - these might be ok)

 

[Crastney]

another update - this plum/damson wine is still going!

I know in a different thread Moley said that it sounded like it would be very alcoholic, and quite thin, from the amount of fruit, sugar, and resulting liquid volume (6lb plums, 4lb damsons, and a 5kg bag of sugar - ended up with 3 and a bit DJs)
I looked at one this morning and it's very dark, and not cloudy, but definitley not clear, maybe opaque is the word I'm looking for.

 

[Crastney]

A further update.

the one DJ that had fermented furthest (SG was 1.042) has now reached 1.038, and I wanted to bottle some before Christmas so I added a crushed CT, and 2 tsp of wine stabiliser. this will be aggitated on a regular basis for a day or so, and then bottled during this week, probably tuesday evening.
The other two DJs still had high SGs last time, up around 1.072, and fermentation looks like its ceased, so I wasn't sure if it was alcoholic, or if it was just cold. They are on the worktop, under the combi boiler in the utility room, north side of house, only room without a heater, so temp is quite cold. I got given a whole load of brewing stuff from the F-I-L, and in that was what I could only imagine was a brew belt, so I've plugged that into a timer, one hour on, one hour off, repeat, wrapped figure of 8 style around near the base of these 2 DJs. one of which has started showing signs of fermentation again. Hopefully they will ferment out further.
The DJ that I'm going to bottle has a very sweet taste, but also alcoholic, more of a liquer, than a wine - small glasses only maybe.

almost all of my cider from DJs has been drunk, my cider from the FV seems to have a problem - all the bottles are clear at the top half, and cloudy at the bottom half. This was probably due to moving the FV from the floor in the hall to the table in the kitchen, and then bottling the day after, without leaving it a week to resettle, and then racking off the sediment, before bottleing. Lesson learnt for next time, but what can I do with all these bottles of half cloudy half clear cider? would filtering work?

all the best for Christmas!

 

[Duncs]

...the one DJ that had fermented furthest (SG was 1.042) has now reached 1.038...

That sounds like you have 0.5% abv, that'll be really sweet and practically non alcoholic :wha:

 

[Crastney]

6lb of plums, 4 lb of damsons, and a 5kg bag of sugar in a total of 4 gal of liquid!

the starting gravity (SG) was way over 1.070, a couple of days after the fruit had been on the pulp, this was just a specific gravity (SG) of 1.042 down to a SG of 1.038

 

[shearclass]

Surley 1.038 is incredibly high, that reading can;t be right if you wine has finished! :wha:

 

[Moley]

The OG would have been around 1.110 but I'm afraid this all sounds rather stuffed up from start to finish, you'd only got enough fruit there for 2 gallons or 10 litres.

Even so, I can't understand why it hasn't fermented lower, what yeast did you use and did you add nutrients?

 

[Crastney]

I used burgundy wine yeast, and yes I was expecting it to go lower.
I was using two recipes, one for plum, and one for damson, each should have given me 1 gallon, but when I'd got all the fruit, and added water etc together, the result was 4 gallons of juice, so yes, very thin wine.
I did not add any nutrient.
I think the only reason it had 'finished' was that it had got too cold, and I'd racked it so there wasn't enough actvie yeast in there. I've only stabilised one DJ, for bottling, the other two I put the brew belt around, and they've started off again, and we'll see how they go, I may have to add some more yeast and/or nutrient.

1.038 was a correct reading, it stopped because it was cold, and not enough yeast rather than stopped because the yeast had run out of sugar, or were dead from alcohol poisoning.

 

[Crastney]

Moley, from other posts you've made recently, you seem to imply that one should always let the drink ferment fully out, untill the SG is around about 1.000 (+-0.005), as that way all the sugar is converted, and the yeasties clean up all the other chemicals, and then one doesn't get hangovers. Since this was stopped at 1.038, would it be sensible, or even possible to add another batch of yeast, and get the fermentation going again?

and with my cider which is half cloudy - can it be filtered, or do I need to add chemicals?

Thanks for all you help, and Merry Christmas!

 

[Moley]

I would certainly try to get it going again, but if you throw fresh yeast into 10% alcohol the shock might kill them straight away. You're better off trying to get them used to the idea gradually by the doubling up method, take a look at this topic.

I would also give it plenty of yeast nutrient and a tsp of citric acid or the juice of a lemon.

 

[Crastney]

I've started this process, and hope that it's working, although I did forget to add the sugar, and get it fermenting fully before adding some of the wine... it has bubbled, so some of it is alive - currently it's about 400ml - with a brew belt around it, it should be going properly by the time I get back tonight.

If it works, I'll try to take some of the yeast, and do the same thing for the other two DJs which have stopped halfway through.

 

[Crastney]

ok, it's not working. the half jar of liquid that I've tried to get going as a starter has gone completely flat. no sign of life.

so - is it possible that it was far too acoholic, and I've killed all the yeast?
should I try again with another yeast?

I only have cider yeast - will that cope? or should I get some more wine yeast? I used 'bourgovin' last time.
is there a strain of yeast for high alcohol content wines?

my other two DJs are the same stuff but gravity reading is now 1.066 (it was 1.070 a month ago), it's had a brew belt around it but very little sign of actual fermentation.

should I get a really good yeast starter going, strong fermentation, and then do the double up thing with all three at the same time?

thanks for all help and advice so far :thumb:

 

[Crastney]

so I got home last night, looked at it, and it was sat there flat as anything, doing nothing.
I got annoyed with it, gave it a darn good shake, and put most of it back in the DJ that I'd stopped, and some of it top up the no.2 DJ that I'd taken a reading from. I put the brew belt around both, and switched it to 'on' rather than 'timed' and left it to it, thinking that maybe it might work.... and lo and behold, this morning there are definite signs of fermentation in both the on purpose stopped wine, that had reached 1.038, and the stopped by itself wine that had only got to 1.066!

I shall leave them alone for a couple of weeks, and take an SG reading again, and I've ordered more yeast anyway, because I have DJ no 3 to start again.

 

[BIGJIM72]

Did it eventually clear Crastney? I had the same problem this year with my plum wine,it took forever to settle out.Just need to sweeten mine up now-it's as tart as an old cat's gaze. Maybe it was just an odd year for plums.

 

[Crastney]

I think I've posted in another thread already, but I finally got a starter of yeast going (can't remember what type now, I think it's the 5th different type used in this batch!) - that was early February, and the Gravity readings were 1056, 1058 and 1060, by the time I'd mixed the contents of all three DJ's into the starter that I was doubling up as per a thread by Moley, to get stuck ferments going again. they're sat on a stool in front of a radiator in my dining room, probably a cool room, as not used much, but is south facing so temp range should be ok. I've kept an eye on them, and they were all still bubbling yesterday, when I gave them a shake - someone somewhere suggested shaking to degass whilst still fermenting, as a build up of CO2 in solution could slow or stop the ferment, and a shake will redistribute the yeast and its food - so fermentation might continue longer....
it's very dark in colour, and definitely not clear.