Wild Berry Wine

[le0n]

^^ i definitely do not want and or need a large batch of that.

it seems to be getting enough oxygen through the cotton ball. and it's a lot easier to manage vs. a cloth cover. i unscrew the lid and provide a fresh burst of air every morning and evening.

[TrevorM]

Oxygen's only needed at the first phase of fermentation when the yeast are doing most of their reproducing. Now that active fermentation has begun it's an anaerobic process, this is called the crabtree effect. Your container maybe open, but there's little to no oxygen there because carbon dioxide being produced is heavier than air.

[le0n]

ah, ok.

so technically speaking, i could throw the airlock on there now. i believe they've reproduced enough, hah hah.

[TrevorM]

Either way, it's not really going to make much difference.

[le0n]

then i won't, because then i can't open my cabinet door without hitting the airlock, hah hah.

sneak peek to show off the legs:

[le0n]

Ok, I was hoping to provide a finished wine update by now, however, I've experienced a minor setback.

It appears that the yeast that I've chosen doesn't do so well in ~70°F temps. The second batch of wine I had put in the attic had pretty much stalled out after two weeks. The fermentation had all but stopped way too early.

This lead me to believe that the first batch could have done the same thing right around the time we were getting into a little cooler temperatures in Houston.

Saturday night I moved both carboys into an interior bedroom closet. This morning both carboys were at 74°F and both had constant co2 bubbling and movement on the airlocks

[TrevorM]

That's a good sign, but don't rely on your airlock as proof of activity. You can get bubbles from changes in temp and air pressure.

[le0n]

^^ True. And I've read that if the wine is too cold, it can hold on to the carbonation too. Meaning that you were still having an active fermentation, however, you would not have bubbles. Stirring the vessel will release carbonation.

I took an SG measurement on the first batch on Thursday (thinking it was done fermenting). I'm still a few marks away from 1.0 SG so I know it stalled. It should have been there already. I moved the carboys to a closet on the same level of the house, so only temperature has changed in the environment.

I even swirled around the second batch on Thursday to see if I could wake up the yeast and nothing happened. After checking it Friday evening and noting again no activity, I knew I had to move them.

Both batches are active again. The second batch has relatively more activity as predicted. I'll monitor them daily to see if things are still going well.

[le0n]

long overdue for an update here. i've been a little busy elsewhere.

regardless, the first batch is still trucking right along. i had no idea it was going to ferment this long.

i've uploaded a video to youtube that shows what the activity is still like: https://youtu.be/K1VhFBXRfHw

i'm not even going to guess when it's going to finish, however, if another month passes by, i'll upload another video of the bubbling.

also, the second batch definitely stalled, however, a great sangria has come from it more than a few times. it's good the way it is and i only have about 2 gallons left, hah hah.