I've been making wine from kits for about a year and a half now. I've
learned many things, especially, doubling the time for all of the kits, and
have been having, on the whole , good results. However, because I live where
it gets cold in the winter, and I live in an old house and make wine in the
basement, fermentation in the winter takes forever, even with the help of
plug in directional heaters,electric blankets etc. What I am asking is,I
have been bulk aging some stabilized wines that I just went to bottle and
tried a sip and they are sweet and not fermented out. Can I add more yeast
or having been stabilized with metabisulphite, will that work? I also
foolishly bottled a batch already, which if I can salvage by uncorking ,
pouring back in a carboy and refermenting, I will. Yes , I know I should be
more vigilant with the hydrometer, but I assumed that giving lot of extra
time for each step would account for that,. Obviously not.
Thanks in advance for the help.

Well at least there is one lesson learned.
It is always a good idea to check the SG when you think the fermentation has
finished. If it is above 1.000 you can generally say that fermentation has
not finished properly. It is also a good idea to take the SG before you add
things like wood chips and yeast at the beginning. (But in between those 2
readings I leave my wines well alone -- beginners tend to think that they
should be doing things to their wine every day! -- they, the wines,
largely prefer to be left alone to get on with it). I find that most of my
wines ferment out down to about 0.994 -- 0.990 -- but I do leave them to the
bitter end when absolute no gas is passing through the fermentation lock

1. The fermentation may just have slowed a great deal due to low
temperatures -- in which case a warming will start it up again, either with
artificial heating like fermentation bin belts/pads, or as spring gets under
way and the ambient temperature rises. If you have bottled your wine in this
condition then you are like to lose some corks ( or if you are using screw
caps you may have the odd explosion and an irate wife!).
2. It may have become "stuck" which happens sometimes when the yeast is
overcome by too much sugar. This would normally happen ( I am not sure how
to define normally!) with an SG which is appreciably higher than 1.000 say
1.020 or even higher. What is needed in this case is to kick start the
fermentation again. This is done by activating a yeast as a starter and
feeding it slowly with say a 1/2 pint of must and when it gets going with
that, add another 1/2 pint or so bit by bit. If you are trying to restart 6
US gals then it is a good idea to build up the fermentation in the
"restarter" till you have a gallon. Then you just add that back to your
original must and it will usually take off too!

3 With regard to your "stabilisation". If you have added Potassium Sorbate
to your wine during the stabilisation then you will probably not be able to
restart it again. I say this because a lot of kit wines ( especially the
less expensive ones) combine both Metabisulphite and Sorbate in their
"Stabilisation packages". Sorbate prevents the yeast from reproducing (a
sort of chemical condom!)

4.Assuming that this is not the case then you can restart the wine that has
not been bottled -- do take the SG and it might give us a better idea of the
problem.

5 You can also unbottle the batch you have already bottled and try a
restart. But you are putting the wine at risk especially if the SG is quite
low. You are exposing your wine to a lot of air again as you empty the
bottles and also the amount of CO2 left in that wine will be minimal. Again
if you had taken the SG it would be easier to advise. My feeling is that if
it only has a small amount of residual sugar left and the alcohol content is
perhaps as high as 8%, then leave it and use the wine as a summer "spritzer"
or the basis for a summer punch.

IHTH


--
Trevor A Panther
In South Yorkshire, England
Remove "PSANTISPAM" from my address line to reply.
All outgoing mail is scanned by AVG 7.0.308
Anti Virus for your protection too!
Web Site:- www.tapan.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk ( Cycling to Santiago de
Compostela 2004)
"John Ireland" > wrote in message
.. .
> I've been making wine from kits for about a year and a half now. I've
> learned many things, especially, doubling the time for all of the kits,
> and have been having, on the whole , good results. However, because I live
> where it gets cold in the winter, and I live in an old house and make wine
> in the basement, fermentation in the winter takes forever, even with the
> help of plug in directional heaters,electric blankets etc. What I am
> asking is,I have been bulk aging some stabilized wines that I just went to
> bottle and tried a sip and they are sweet and not fermented out. Can I add
> more yeast or having been stabilized with metabisulphite, will that work?
> I also foolishly bottled a batch already, which if I can salvage by
> uncorking , pouring back in a carboy and refermenting, I will. Yes , I
> know I should be more vigilant with the hydrometer, but I assumed that
> giving lot of extra time for each step would account for that,. Obviously
> not.
> Thanks in advance for the help.
>

On Tue, 03 May 2005 06:58:16 GMT, "pinky"
> wrote:

>Well at least there is one lesson learned.
>It is always a good idea to check the SG when you think the fermentation has
>finished. If it is above 1.000 you can generally say that fermentation has
>not finished properly. It is also a good idea to take the SG before you add
>things like wood chips and yeast at the beginning. (But in between those 2
>readings I leave my wines well alone -- beginners tend to think that they
>should be doing things to their wine every day! -- they, the wines,
>largely prefer to be left alone to get on with it). I find that most of my
>wines ferment out down to about 0.994 -- 0.990 -- but I do leave them to the
>bitter end when absolute no gas is passing through the fermentation lock
>
>1. The fermentation may just have slowed a great deal due to low
>temperatures -- in which case a warming will start it up again, either with
>artificial heating like fermentation bin belts/pads, or as spring gets under
>way and the ambient temperature rises. If you have bottled your wine in this
>condition then you are like to lose some corks ( or if you are using screw
>caps you may have the odd explosion and an irate wife!).
>2. It may have become "stuck" which happens sometimes when the yeast is
>overcome by too much sugar. This would normally happen ( I am not sure how
>to define normally!) with an SG which is appreciably higher than 1.000 say
>1.020 or even higher. What is needed in this case is to kick start the
>fermentation again. This is done by activating a yeast as a starter and
>feeding it slowly with say a 1/2 pint of must and when it gets going with
>that, add another 1/2 pint or so bit by bit. If you are trying to restart 6
>US gals then it is a good idea to build up the fermentation in the
>"restarter" till you have a gallon. Then you just add that back to your
>original must and it will usually take off too!
>
>3 With regard to your "stabilisation". If you have added Potassium Sorbate
>to your wine during the stabilisation then you will probably not be able to
>restart it again. I say this because a lot of kit wines ( especially the
>less expensive ones) combine both Metabisulphite and Sorbate in their
>"Stabilisation packages". Sorbate prevents the yeast from reproducing (a
>sort of chemical condom!)
>
>4.Assuming that this is not the case then you can restart the wine that has
>not been bottled -- do take the SG and it might give us a better idea of the
>problem.
>
>5 You can also unbottle the batch you have already bottled and try a
>restart. But you are putting the wine at risk especially if the SG is quite
>low. You are exposing your wine to a lot of air again as you empty the
>bottles and also the amount of CO2 left in that wine will be minimal. Again
>if you had taken the SG it would be easier to advise. My feeling is that if
>it only has a small amount of residual sugar left and the alcohol content is
>perhaps as high as 8%, then leave it and use the wine as a summer "spritzer"
>or the basis for a summer punch.
>
>IHTH

I agree. If you have already stabilized (with sorbate), then try
carbonating it and adding some orage juice. It could make a deightful
summer beverage. I've done this to a couple of wines. It's a bit
dissapointing, but that sort of thing happens from time to time.

If you haven't added sorbate then you may be able to restart the
fermentation. Stabilize the fermentation temperature around 76° F and
wait. Be patient...I have waited over six month and had fermentation
start up again.

Cheers

Truitt

John,
You have excellent advice here. As an heads up I just restarted two
fermentations using pretty much the outline you were given. Both were
at around 1.015, which is 'pretty stuck'. (I bought old pails of cold
fresh juice, it was an experiment.)

I used Lalvin K1V1116 and EC1118, one on each. The EC1118 was more
vigorous and is close to complete now. I used a general purpose
heating pad set on medium attched with two old belts, then wrapped 2
heavy towels. I have a cold basement too.

Joe

Thanks for all the advice. When stabilizing I did add the metabisulphite,
but not the sorbate, which I don't bother with. If was to make up some
yeast starter, and add it slowly to the must, keeping it nice and warm of
course, would the metabisuphite kill it off? The s.g. seems to be just below
1000.
"John Ireland" > wrote in message
.. .
> I've been making wine from kits for about a year and a half now. I've
> learned many things, especially, doubling the time for all of the kits,
> and have been having, on the whole , good results. However, because I live
> where it gets cold in the winter, and I live in an old house and make wine
> in the basement, fermentation in the winter takes forever, even with the
> help of plug in directional heaters,electric blankets etc. What I am
> asking is,I have been bulk aging some stabilized wines that I just went to
> bottle and tried a sip and they are sweet and not fermented out. Can I add
> more yeast or having been stabilized with metabisulphite, will that work?
> I also foolishly bottled a batch already, which if I can salvage by
> uncorking , pouring back in a carboy and refermenting, I will. Yes , I
> know I should be more vigilant with the hydrometer, but I assumed that
> giving lot of extra time for each step would account for that,. Obviously
> not.
> Thanks in advance for the help.
>

John Ireland wrote:
> Thanks for all the advice. When stabilizing I did add the
metabisulphite,
> but not the sorbate, which I don't bother with. If was to make up
some
> yeast starter, and add it slowly to the must, keeping it nice and
warm of
> course, would the metabisuphite kill it off? The s.g. seems to be
just below
> 1000.

If your S.G. is at or below 1.000, you may not be dealing with a stuck
fermentation. If you are, having added the standard pkg of
metabisulphite shouldn't prevent renewed fermentation. The normal
strains of wine yeast are pretty tolerant of sulphites. You could test
it, of course, and you could lower the sulphite level by racking back
and forth a few times (rack and splash). But you would have to have a
pretty high sulphite level to knock out the yeast entirely.

Doug

Actually you add the must slowly to the starter; just keep doubling it
once you see it is fermenting well. Once you are up to a gallon you
are ok to add it to the remainder of the must. You may want to
consider some yeast nutrient also if you can get some. It would not
need a lot. Cheap insurance.

Joe

And it isn't going to be easy to get it going again with the SG sitting just
below 1.000. A big part of the process will be to raise the temperature
substantially and make sure that it is well "topped up"-- although you have
never said what the temperature of the must/wine is. And don't be
extravagant with the nutrient
I must say ( pun intended) that I would cut my losses and use it for a
summer spritzer but good luck anyway

--
Trevor A Panther
In South Yorkshire, England
Remove "PSANTISPAM" from my address line to reply.
All outgoing mail is scanned by AVG 7.0.308
Anti Virus for your protection too!
Web Site:- www.tapan.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk ( Cycling to Santiago de
Compostela 2004)

"Joe Sallustio" > wrote in message
ups.com...
> Actually you add the must slowly to the starter; just keep doubling it
<snip><snip>
>

John Ireland wrote:
> Thanks for all the advice. When stabilizing I did add the
metabisulphite,
> but not the sorbate, which I don't bother with. If was to make up
some
> yeast starter, and add it slowly to the must, keeping it nice and
warm of
> course, would the metabisuphite kill it off? The s.g. seems to be
just below
> 1000.

If your S.G. is at or below 1.000, you may not be dealing with a stuck
fermentation. If you are, having added the standard pkg of
metabisulphite shouldn't prevent renewed fermentation. The normal
strains of wine yeast are pretty tolerant of sulphites. You could test
it, of course, and you could lower the sulphite level by racking back
and forth a few times (rack and splash). But you would have to have a
pretty high sulphite level to knock out the yeast entirely.

Doug