Something odd has happened: I made (or rather am making) a Selection
International Gwertztrimner kit. Now, in retrospect, I admit that I was
a bit too hasty stabilizing and clarifying this wine. (SG 0.996) I am
new at this after all. Any way, I stabilized using the metabisulfite
and the sorbate that came with the kit, degassed and clarified the wine,
and I followed the instructions religiously. I decided to leave it in
the secondary for a month or so before I bottled it. Now, I swear, I
really swear that the fermentation lock on the secondary was absolutely
flat during the period it was clarifying. And clarify it did,
beautifully I might add. After it had clarified I racked it off about 6
days ago, and decided to leave it in the secondary for about a month or
so before I bottled it.

Just this evening, I went down stairs, and something caught my eye: The
fermentation lock burped. I said to myself, this cannot be, but I
stayed and watched it. Sure enough - very slowly, fermentation lock is
bubbling - therefore, I can only assume fermentation has begun again.

I guess the only thing to do is to watch it carefully and see where it
goes from here.

Has this ever happened to anyone here? What can I expect to happen?

Abby
--
The ChildFree Abby Archives - http://www.dismal-light.net/childfreeabby/

It's probably not relevant, but I thought one of my fermenters had started fermenting again. It turned out, I believe,
that it was just a rise in ambient temperature pushing some gas through the lock. The SG never changed.

If it is fermenting, pressumably it will throw a little sediment over time so you may be able to check that way too.

Jim



"Childfree Abby" wrote in message ...
Something odd has happened: I made (or rather am making) a Selection International Gwertztrimner kit. Now, in
retrospect, I admit that I was a bit too hasty stabilizing and clarifying this wine. (SG 0.996) I am new at this after
all. Any way, I stabilized using the metabisulfite and the sorbate that came with the kit, degassed and clarified the
wine, and I followed the instructions religiously. I decided to leave it in the secondary for a month or so before I
bottled it. Now, I swear, I really swear that the fermentation lock on the secondary was absolutely flat during the
period it was clarifying. And clarify it did, beautifully I might add. After it had clarified I racked it off about
6 days ago, and decided to leave it in the secondary for about a month or so before I bottled it.

Just this evening, I went down stairs, and something caught my eye: The fermentation lock burped. I said to myself,
this cannot be, but I stayed and watched it. Sure enough - very slowly, fermentation lock is bubbling - therefore, I
can only assume fermentation has begun again.

I guess the only thing to do is to watch it carefully and see where it goes from here.

Has this ever happened to anyone here? What can I expect to happen?

Abby
--
The ChildFree Abby Archives - http://www.dismal-light.net/childfreeabby/

Ditto what Jim said... a change in temperature or pressure can make an
airlock burp.

However, I have had several batches that appeared to be done, but came
back to life just before I bottled them. Unless you have the
equipment to do micro-filtration, your best bet is to let it run its
course and rack one more time before bottling.

Greg G.

It could also be some dissolved CO2 coming out of saturation if the
temp changed.

Joe

Joe Sallustio wrote:
It could also be some dissolved CO2 coming out of saturation if the
temp changed.

Joe



Thank you, one and all for your responses.

Whether change of air pressure, temp or whatever... the burping has
stopped. Therefore it is back to our regularly scheduled bulk aging


Abby

--
The ChildFree Abby Archives - http://www.dismal-light.net/childfreeabby/