A specific question about gravity

[gillonstewart]

Okay, I'll apologise for the poor pun in the title from the get go haha.

I've just transferred my ginger wine into a demijohn and tested the SG which was 1.600. I thought this seemed a little high after around ten days in primary and a vastly slowed down bubble rate. The 5 gallon batches I make with concentrate are usually pretty much fully attenuated in this timescale.

It's been sitting on a heater pad to keep the temperature constant (as I live in a 300+ year old cotter house in Highland Perthshire and it's been hovering around 13°c where the wine is brewing)

What SG would you expect at this stage? The last two country wines I've made have stopped fermentation at only a slightly lower SG so I'm concerned this one will go the same way.

Recipe used was:
Ginger - 80g
White grape concentrate - 250ml
Sugar - 1.5kg
Bananas - 1.06kg peeled
Water - 4.5litres
Teaspoon each of yeast and nutrient

Somewhat unhelpfully, I seem to have not recorded the OG but the recipe is pretty much CJJ Berry's (see a theme building on my recipes?) With a little extra banana to make up for the slightly lower WGC volume.

Any thoughts welcome as always

Gill

 

[Dutto]

How about 1.060 for the SG?

As an OG, this would give an ABV of about 8% which ain’t bad for a ginger wine.

If the brew tastes sweet the chances are it’s stuck! If it tastes “dry” then the sugars have fermented out and it can be stabilised, cleared and bottled.
:hat:

PS
With an SG of 1.600 you would get an ABV of about 78%. This isn’t possible without distilling. (Which is illegal!!!)

 

[gillonstewart]

Sorry yes, 1.060. this isn't the OG though, unless I'm very much mistaken in the process. It's been in primary fermentation for over a week bubbling and foaming away merrily in the bucket. I'd guess OG would have been around 1.080-1.085

Having just checked an online calculator the sugar alone in that recipe would give an SG of 1.085 without all the fruit.... Perhaps I should stop blindly following recipes!

 

[IceQueen]

PS
With an SG of 1.600 you would get an ABV of about 78%. This isn’t possible without distilling. (Which is illegal!!!)

Not correct. You can freez distill very leagal in most countries in the world.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Not correct. You can freez distill very leagal in most countries in the world.

Corret.
How high can you get the ABV using freeze distilling?

 

[IceQueen]

the world strongest beers are all freez distilled and reach nearly 70%

what you can archieve depends on how patient you are and what method you use.

either freeze the brew in a big bucket and skim off the ice

OR freezde it all in a 5liter plastic bottle and than put it at minus 5degree to wait for the alcohol to "defrost", put up side downnwith a bucke underneath, open lid and wait till the alcohol and flavour run out. in theory only the water remains in the bottle, the rest goes in the bucket. But you need a second freezer for it, if you do it outside, water condensates arround the bottle and because its warm, delutes the alcohol slightly (plus a freezer is fly free

 

[Dutto]

Not correct. You can freez distill very leagal in most countries in the world.

the world strongest beers are all freez distilled and reach nearly 70%

…..

I suggest that you look at the attached Ethanol/Water graph!

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Phase_diagram_ethanol_water_s_l_en.svg
It indicates that at -30*C (the lowest temperature that domestic freezers will reach) you will only have 40% Ethanol in the water.

“Yes!” commercial beer may be frozen and thereby increase it’s ABV by removing the ice that will form, but to get any higher than 40% takes distillation - which is illegal in the UK.

To get to the quoted 70% will require the temperature to be dropped to -52*C - which cannot be achieved in a domestic freezer!
:hat:

BTW, the little “kick” at the 93% Ethanol point that shows the lowest temperature before the Ethanol becomes a solid is called the “Eutectic”. It is a feature of most water soluble liquids that freeze at below 0*C

 

[IceQueen]

Hi,

putting superfrost on goes to -32 but I woulds say, 45% is still dam good, especally if you compare that most vodka has only 37.5%

 

[Cwrw666]

This thread has strayed rather quickly off topic.

 

[Cwrw666]

Sorry yes, 1.060. this isn't the OG though, unless I'm very much mistaken in the process. It's been in primary fermentation for over a week bubbling and foaming away merrily in the bucket. I'd guess OG would have been around 1.080-1.085

Having just checked an online calculator the sugar alone in that recipe would give an SG of 1.085 without all the fruit.... Perhaps I should stop blindly following recipes!

Just give it time. I like the look of this recipe but it's more of a country wine than a juice wine. I'm always amazed at how quickly juice wines ferment out have spent many years making wines from whatever I can glean from a hedgerow. Country wines can take ages to finish fermenting. But I don't know why.

 

[An Ankoù]

Not correct. You can freez distill very leagal in most countries in the world.

Freeze distilling is a misnomer, it's not distilling its simply removing lumps of congealed water from a supercooled mixture. Point taken, though. The alcohol and all the other components can be concentrated through this method.

 

[gillonstewart]

This thread went a bit off topic haha.

My mother in law once put a bottle of wine in the freezer to cool it down quickly but then forgot about it. Not one to waste any of it, she let it defrost and drank it. I tasted it and it was foul. She drank it and was extremely ill for a day or two. May have been coincidence.

My grandmother used to put homemade cider in a covered bucket outside in the winter and pick the ice off in the morning to make apple brandy.

Anyway... On topic. I'm going to test all of my wines again. Got a few on which haven't really been moving

 

[Chippy_Tea]

This thread has strayed rather quickly off topic.

I agree and i have removed the grey area from the earlier post we allow freeze distilling (as its wrongly called) to be discussed as its not distilling heating etc is a grey area we don't want to have to moderate.

 

[gillonstewart]

The wine in question has moved slightly, a few points on the SG scale but barely at all.

In fact none of the wines have moved much. The 5 gallon batch has been fermentation for two or three weeks and is still 1.010! The apple and mango WOW is still at 1.030 after a week and a half, two weeks. (I rely on the OH for recording dates, SGs etc. So don't have them to hand. My memory is destroyed after several decades of drinking etc.)

So basically, everything is still fermenting after a fashion but extremely slowly. They are all clearing at the expected rate though which I'm finding odd.

 

[Dutto]

…. My memory is destroyed after several decades of drinking etc.)

So basically, everything is still fermenting after a fashion but extremely slowly. They are all clearing at the expected rate though which I'm finding odd.

I know that feeling all too well!

With regard to the second paragraph think the answer is to be found in the third line of the first verse in “Little Bo-Peep!”

So please put your alcohol sodden brain in gear and work out what I recommend!
:hat:

PS
Don’t be ashamed to ask your OH to recite the Nursery Rhyme if you don’t know it!

 

[Chippy_Tea]

In fact none of the wines have moved much. The 5 gallon batch has been fermentation for two or three weeks and is still 1.010! The apple and mango WOW is still at 1.030 after a week and a half, two weeks. (I rely on the OH for recording dates, SGs etc. So don't have them to hand. My memory is destroyed after several decades of drinking etc.)

You appear to be having a lot of issues I can honestly say I have made hundreds of litres of supermarket juice wine and non have taken more than two weeks from start to bottle, if all yours are taking longer I really don't understand why.

 

[gillonstewart]

You appear to be having a lot of issues I can honestly say I have made hundreds of litres of supermarket juice wine and non have taken more than two weeks from start to bottle, if all yours are taking longer I really don't understand why.

I know, it's across the board, everything is fermenting extremely slowly. The temperature is an issue but this is high summer and really shouldn't be cold enough to cause issues, it's still 16-18°c in the house.

The only thing I can think of is the yeast isn't very good which would be annoying because I only just bought it and it's a big container. Even if it's mostly dead, once the live cells start multiplying it shouldn't matter.

PS
Don’t be ashamed to ask your OH to recite the Nursery Rhyme if you don’t know it!

Unfortunately I don't know it I had the misfortune of being brought up in a fundamentalist Christian cult where such things were viewed as immoral.

I will have to Google it (ps, I left home at 16 to escape the cult)

 

[Dutto]

Bo-Peep is advised to “Leave them alone and they will come home.”

I thought the next line “Wagging their tails behind them.” a bit inappropriate!
:hat:

 

[IceQueen]

The only thing I can think of is the yeast isn't very good which would be annoying because I only just bought it and it's a big container. Even if it's mostly dead, once the live cells start multiplying it shouldn't matter.

What yeast strain are you using? container?

And if its a bit cold in the house, be decent to your fermenter, put a few layers cardbord under it and wrap a child size blanket arround it. A pillow or bath towel for the top and you get a few more degrees without usen electic.

 

[gillonstewart]

What yeast strain are you using? container?

And if its a bit cold in the house, be decent to your fermenter, put a few layers cardbord under it and wrap a child size blanket arround it. A pillow or bath towel for the top and you get a few more degrees without usen electic.

It's Young's dried active yeast (I actually thought it was Young's general purpose wine yeast) the best before date is 01/11/22 which seems annoyingly close given I only just bought it but even so, once it starts multiplying it shouldn't matter.

Two of the batches had some restart yeast added to them which made no difference.

The fermenters are all sitting on 1" thick kingspan insulation board and a couple of them were previously on heater pads as well but I switched them off after the hoover bag flavoured batch of WOW which I put down to it getting cooked.

My house is tiny (it's a 300+ year old cottar hoose/bothy) so blankets etc. aren't very practical space-wise but you've got me thinking.... Lidl has/d 3.5 tog duvets, I could buy one and make little tea cosy type things for the DJs. It's currently sitting at 17° in the living room and 16 in the hallway where the wine is.

It's worth noting that the batch of beer I've had sitting carbonating for over a month hasn't carbonated at all. It's been in the living room throughout.