Stalled fermentation

The wine after racking

The red wine (Rondo) had stopped bubbling so we assumed it had stopped fermentation. The sediment had settled nicely so we decided to rack it and naturally measured the Specific Gravity and Brix. Lo and behold, the SG was1.02 and the Brix reading was 14. Way too sweet for a dry wine, which was our objective. We tasted it and, although a lovely colour, aroma, and taste, definitely too sweet. 

So it was back to the book to determine what can stall fermentation. It turns out lots of things can stall fermentation. (p51 of First Steps in Winemaking lists at least 8 possible causes.) I didn't want to add sugar water as it was too sweet and I don't like the idea of diluting wine. One of the suggestions was to add more yeast. So I dissolved one level tsp of yeast nutrient in 1 cup of warm previously boiled water and added in one level tsp of brewer's yeast. I added one cup to each of the three gallon jugs of wine after racking. That topped off the container perfectly after racking and now one of the demijohns has already started bubbling. I am hopeful to complete the fermentation. 

1.02 SG

The white wine, which got the sugar water addition, is not doing much of anything. We might have to rack that again and do the same. 

Alex decanting wine left behind

The sediment

Brrrrr, the big chill has arrived

Sunset today - so early. This was at 4:17.

Until today, November has been exceedingly mild. The mean temperature was 10.3 degrees for the month through the 20th, which is more than a degree warmer than last year. Last year at 9.1C was 2 degrees warmer than 2019 and a degree warmer than the prior two years (8.3C). Lots of flowers have been blooming right through the month, including amazing roses. Bees have been flying right through to this morning. Alex put up a lovely gate to the Apiary and made a cute sign for it.

This afternoon, it turned bitterly cold. We are to have about a week of arctic chill and Friday we will have a gale. They are saying that it may drop below zero at night but as there is no precipitation in the forecast until Wednesday at the earliest, there is little likelihood of snow. We will have little cloud cover so we may yet get frost. That would be welcome as it might kill off some of the pests and coax everything into dormancy. 

It was a beautiful Autumn, with lots of colour. Most of the leaves have now dropped, the donkeys are in the barn, and the sunrises and sunsets have been spectacular. But we did not get to see the lunar eclipse as there was too much cloud cover. We even had enough leaves remaining that we had to rake them today. 

The wine is doing well; the bubbling has slowed down. Time to rack the white in particular. The yeast has settled nicely at the bottom of the demijohn. The red is taking longer to settle but it has more volume.

The mushroom kits have stopped producing so I put one out by the alder trees above the 'Avenue' and the oyster mushrooms I put out by the beech tree in the opposite corner. Hopefully, there are enough spores left to populate edible mushrooms in our 'forest'. 

Beautiful Autumn colour this year. 

The leaves didn't get blown off or burnt.

Vineyard today.

Polytunnel goodies.

Roses still blooming

Mushrooms in the fallen leaves

Cosmos finally bloomed - in November

Poppy this morning

Hesperantha or Schizostylis - not sure which.

Sunrise Sunset Times of Newport, Co. Mayo, Ireland

Location: Ireland > Co. Mayo > Carrowbeg (Fergus) >

Timezone:

Europe/Dublin

Current Time:

2021-11-21 16:57:56

Longitude:

-9.5463685

Latitude:

53.8852758

Sunrise Today:

08:19:00 AM

Sunset Today:

04:29:50 PM

Daylength Today:

8h 10m 50s

Sunrise Tomorrow:

08:20:44 AM

Sunset Tomorrow:

04:28:38 PM

Daylength Tomorrow:

8h 7m 54s

The new gate to the apiary path

Sediment settling

 

Day 2 and the sediment is already settling and the juice clarifying. This stage is called racking. Why I don't know. But from here, we will use gravity to siphon the liquid from the top and leave the sediment behind. One does this usually about a week into the racking. Then again until it's as clear as you want before bottling. 

The second stage

We racked the wine into the demijohn and corked it with the oyster farm cork with fermentation airlock. It smelled very good and Alex said he tasted it yesterday and it was good. But the specific gravity was 1.02 so we have a little ways to go to get to 0.99. It might be just a little cool in the pantry area. It will remain there for about two weeks before stabilizing. 

There is not much more to this stage so we'll just wait and hope it continues to ferment a little more. Meanwhile, the remaining grapes, those that were way behind ripening, are not ready to pick and eat.