applejax
New Member
hello everyone. new to the forum and wine making and this is my first post. bought my first kit, smashed some muscadines and scuppernongs (both red and white), muddled through the instructions which the more i read the more confused i seemed to get. my first issue was actually getting fermentation to start. i mixed the ingredients and additives, including 1 campden tab for each gal and waited the 24 hours. mixed up the yeast in warm sugar water, got a good froth and added to must in 6 gal bucket with airlock and waited... and waited 24 hrs and nothing. in my panic i added another pack of yeast. repeated this process for 3 days and finally started fermentation. left for 7 days and then put in 3 gallon carboy with airlock for 30 days. racked again into carboy filled to the top and plugged as per instructions with the kit. waited 2 months and never could get hydrometer below 1.000. tasted pretty good after i sweetened. waited another 2 weeks then bottled, still not reaching below 1.000 on hydrometer. so i'm hoping to get 15 bottles consumed before the corks blew out. so at this pont i have a couple questions
1. why did fermentation take 3 days to start
2. what did i do wrong that i could never get a hydrometer below 1.000.
the resulting wine does taste decent to my unsophisticated pallet and i notice no effervescence, although i admit i never could get it to de-gas completely.
2nd batch was blueberries. i grow my own so i had plenty. added enough sugar to make 12% alcohol along with the other ingredients. again same issue with delayed fermentation. so
question 1. is the use of an airlock in primary fermentation causing the delay
once it start however it went like gangbusters for 7 days. at this point hydrometer reading was about .995.
question 2: can that be right. i would have thought it would not reach that level until after secondary fermentation. which i started at the time of the reading
question 3: if that is truly the correct reading ( and i will check again once the sediment settles a bit) should go ahead and stabilize and bottle. seems the more i read the more i believe i'm overthinking it. any advice would be appreciated
1. why did fermentation take 3 days to start
2. what did i do wrong that i could never get a hydrometer below 1.000.
the resulting wine does taste decent to my unsophisticated pallet and i notice no effervescence, although i admit i never could get it to de-gas completely.
2nd batch was blueberries. i grow my own so i had plenty. added enough sugar to make 12% alcohol along with the other ingredients. again same issue with delayed fermentation. so
question 1. is the use of an airlock in primary fermentation causing the delay
once it start however it went like gangbusters for 7 days. at this point hydrometer reading was about .995.
question 2: can that be right. i would have thought it would not reach that level until after secondary fermentation. which i started at the time of the reading
question 3: if that is truly the correct reading ( and i will check again once the sediment settles a bit) should go ahead and stabilize and bottle. seems the more i read the more i believe i'm overthinking it. any advice would be appreciated