Air lock or 'cloth'

[CharleyFarley]

Hi Folks

I have just made two gallons of gooseberry wine (I hope!) and wondered, having read differing 'ideas' whether I should be using an air lock on my fermenting bucket. I have one on at the moment. Also, temperature - I pitched my yeast at about 34 c (90f) as had to go to bed, and left the bin in the airing cupboard, then did a bit more research and found that a white wine should be fermented (let alone 'pitched') at a lower temperature, so moved it downstairs. In the airing cupboard, I tested water this morning at 80f/24c whereas the water in the kitchen was 66f/20c - what do people think?
Cheers
PS - It is bubbling now, which it wasn't this morning

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I would use an airlock, i like to see that fermentation is taking place and when it is slowing down or stopped.

My kitchen is currently 22C, my DJ's are sat on top of the fridge freezer bubbling away nicely, at this time of year the yeast needs no help. :thumb:

 

[CharleyFarley]

Thanks, Chippytea. That makes me feel better! The bubbling has speeded up in the last couple of hours, even!
Would you stir every day, or leave well alone? Most advice for putting into Demijohns seems to be 5-7 days - depending on what? Whether you have time? Specific gravity?
Cheers

 

[MyQul]

I don't make wine and know absolutely nothing about making it. Is an airlock necessary for wine making? For some reason I'm under the impression it is, even though it's not for beer making.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I don't know about stirring as I only make wine from juice, I am sure someone will be along to help soon.

 

[engineer]

Its good to use an airlock if you can it will help to keep contamination out however it is not 100% necessary. Consider that brewing / fermentation was discovered long before airlocks were invented.

For me it depends what i am doing and what equipment i have available at the time. For example a few weeks ago i was tripping over Rhubarb at the allotment so decided to clear some of it and made some wine out of it.

This involved cleaning chopping and soaking 2.5kg of Rhubarb with sugar in several litres of water for a week stirring it several times a day. To make this process easy i do it in a small 15 litre trug, leave the stirrer in there and cover it with a cloth. Always works fine, never had a problem.

Once the week is up, the resulting juice gets strained into a Demijon and or course thats when I use an airlock to complete the fermentation.
That brew is now aging, very nice it tastes to.

If i am just making wine from kits (which i do most often) then clearly i don't need to go through the first part of this process and just put it into a standard demijon or fermenter with an airlock.

 

[CharleyFarley]

Thank you Engineer. I am using an air lock at the moment.
Stirring several times a day? Better do that then. Keeping the stirrer in the bin - what a good idea - shall do that too!
We haven't done too well with our rhubarb this year, barely enough just to stew. Loads of gooseberries though. Have you got a good recipe for blackcurrant wine, as we usually get shed loads of those!

Cheers

 

[CharleyFarley]

I have just strained and pressed the gooseberry must and transferred it back to the original bin for a few days until putting into demi johns. The OG was 1094 and it is now down to 1070 and was bubbling at about once every eight seconds before I strained it. I have seen one bubble since doing this an hour ago. I'm worried that it isn't going to go much further - what do you think? Also, should I put any more Cambden tablets in either now or when I put into the demi-johns? Some say yes, but won't it kill any yeast that is left? I'm assuming that it should still be bubbling in the demi johns for a while
Cheers

 

[engineer]

For blackcurrant see this one, seems easy enough.
http://www.wine-making-guides.com/blackcurrant_wine.html

Sounds like its still got some way to go. I always aim to get wine below 1000 and ideally down to 990 as i like dry wine. Its easy to back sweeten later if necessary.

If you are going to continue fermenting in the demijon you may want to consider adding more yeast if the fermentation is stuck at 1070.