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

Correcting the sugar content

Looks like we messed up. 

Our red must has tested at just over 1.008 on the hydrometer and 5 on the Brix scale. That won't get us to the right alcohol content - too low. We should have added sugar to the must at the first stage but we didn't.

When making wine, the Start Gravity should be 1.070 (normal finished ABV will be 10.5%) to 1.090 (normal finished ABV will be 13%). Finish Gravity should be 0.990 (for dry wines) to 1.005 (for sweet wines).

Alex made a simple sugar syrup dissolving sugar in boiled water. We have to wait for it to cool to room temperature. 

Now we have to figure out how much syrup to add. Because I had to dilute the sugar solution by half to get the hydrometer to read the SG, the specific gravity of the syrup is 1.110 x 2  or 1.220. 

So to increase the SG to where the potential alcohol would be sufficient, we'd have to add 40 oz sugar per gallon or 2.5 lbs per gallon. That would be 1 l of water or 1.5 l of syrup. (Alex did the maths.)

Just as a note to self:  3 kg water plus 3 kg sugar = 1 demijohn.

So we expanded our two demijohns to three with the sugar syrup and must (stirred to keep the yeast equal) divided equally among the three. I tested the SG of the resulting must and it read SG 1.070. That should get us to over 9% ABV. 

Curiously, I just measured the SG of the Solaris must, and it, too, reads 1.008. Not surprising as it started out at the exact same SG as the Rondo must. So we'll have to repeat the procedure for the white. 

So we have 1.5 l of Solaris must, measured by weight. So if we need 40 oz sugar per 3.78 l above, we need:

40/3.78 = x/1.5 = 15.9 or 16 oz of sugar. We added 16 oz of sugar dissolved in 16 oz of water to the 1.5 l of must and essentially doubled the volume. The SG read 1.082, a little higher than the red but perfectly fine. 

Let's hope we have restarted the fermentation. At least we now have 1/3 more wine to bottle. 

Here are 10 more things that can go wrong in fermentation. 

https://www.brewersfriend.com/abv-calculator/ 

Visitors to our vineyard

Louis Mostert, a former South African vintner, is visiting his daughter who lives in Ireland and asked to stop by to see what we were doing. He was very encouraged and has put us in touch with a enologist in SA who wants to come to Ireland. 

Louis owned a vineyard and winery in SA but has sold it and retired. He now consults for other vintners. He thought our vines looked very healthy. It's always good to hear from people who know what they are doing that we are not insane. 

The Rondo leaves have just turned a pleasing shade of reddish-orange. All the others are still green. 

Making wine

Yesterday, we decanted and strained the Solaris must through cheesecloth in a sieve and squeezed all the remaining juice out of the grapes through the cloth. We measured specific gravity of 1.0075 so we don't have a long way to go. The liquid is quite cloudy so it will take some time to clarify in the demijohn. The tiny drops I tasted were actually quite good but strongly flavoured.

We had a lot more red must from the Rondo grapes so Alex devised a method of forming a ball in the cheesecloth and squeezing it in his hands. We pondered whether we should make grappa but thought better of it. 

Again the specific gravity read 1.0075 so we surmised we harvested a bit early. For next year, I have purchased a refractometer so we'll be a bit more scientific. Last year, our Rondo came in at 1.02 so we had a long way to go to get to .99. This year, we won't have as much alcohol content. The juice tasted much sweeter last year. This year's juice is a bit harsh tasting but the smell is lovely. 

So we have one demijohn of white and two of red. That's getting better already. Now we wait. The trouble is, we have forgotten from year to year what we need to do. I suppose I should take a course. 

Remaining grapes

We left behind the grapes that had not yet ripened when we were picking. I went up to check if they were ripening as we've had weird weather the last few days. Misty and rainy. Wouldn't you know, that most of the grapes were gone. Cheeky birds must have had a feast. I thought the CDs would be keeping them away but the most stripped clusters were right next to a CD. Interestingly, the best remaining grapes were by the heron statue. 

So I am very glad we harvested when we did. Yet the grapes that are still there are substantially bigger than they were when we harvested. Juicy and delicious. And the Chardonnay are still not ripening. 

Oh and our gas-powered mowing beast has finally arrived. In time to store it for winter. 

Comparing dates

I reviewed historical posts and compared them with this year's notes. Surprisingly we harvested last year on Saturday, Sept 19, 2020 and this year on Friday, Sept 17, 2021. I thought we'd be delayed this year but it was actually two days earlier. The year before, on the 15th of Sept 2019, all the ripe grapes were gone. We had delayed the harvest by one day due to atrocious weather. Very interesting indeed.  

I've ordered a handheld refractometer, so next year's harvest date will be more scientifically determined. The Brix scale is calibrated to the number of grams of cane sugar contained in 100 mL of water. Therefore, the Brix % reading equals actual sugar concentration. Grapes and wines typically have a reading between 14 and 19. Although not everyone treats it scientifically. 

Interestingly, the grapes started fermenting even before we added the yeast. The natural environmental yeasts must be quite active here. I need to study biodynamics more intensely now. The musty smell was quite pleasant. 

Yesterday, the NY Times published an article about the specialists who developed Covid 19 with anosmia. With the loss of their sense of smell and taste, they lost their expertise. That hadn't crossed my mind but it must be awful. A dentist years ago severed a nerve when administering anaesthetic. I lost my sense of smell and taste in half of my face and had no feeling in half my tongue for years afterwards. In fact, I think I still have impaired senses. But for an oenologist to lose his or her nose would be tragic.

Sunnyhill Vineyard in Oxford England is harvesting today I believe.  Their method of growing grapes is more traditional. It looks like their vines are about the same age as our oldest - so about 6 years. 

D-Day for Harvest

17 Sep 2021, grape harvest

Yesterday was harvest day. We celebrated Alex's mom's 88th birthday in the morning, then got to work in the vineyard in the afternoon. It took several hours of persistent snipping but we ended up with a laundry basket plus a tote basket full of red Rondo grapes and half a laundry basket full of white Solaris. That's far more than last year. 

There was very little indication of disease and almost no mould. The Solaris leaves are already turning yellow and dropping. The Rondo are still green. Many of the 4-year-old Solaris had at least one bunch of grapes and a few had multiple bunches of very sweet and tasty nuggets.

There was no indication of any grapes on the newest vines (Pinot Noir and Albarino) but there is one bunch on a Chardonnay vine that is not yet ready to sample. 

I sterilised the equipment when we finished picking. We then started de-stemming on the porch until a cold wind came and forced us indoors. It will take another day to destem the red grapes, but I managed to finish the white grapes last night. We even got a harvest moon rising in the evening. 

Now for the winemaking. 

Lovely bunch

Lazy helper

Some were not ready and will be picked later

Heavy load

Juicy little morsels

Filled the RTV

Not a bad harvest

Hanging CDs helped with the birds

Destemming is hard work