Elderberry wine help please!!!

[lisy27]

Hi all,
Just joined this forum, some of you may of read my earlier post on the Wurzel's,lol!

My first wine ive started is an Elderberry, after doing abit of reading i thought id have a bash , in hindsight i think ive been abit of an impatient beginner by rushing though as ive since read its not an ideal choice for newbies!! but anyways, ive started it now and really dont want to ruin it (if i have not done so already that is!!) so thought id ask you knowledgable guys some advice :grin:

Right, well i had 3lb elders in 8 pints boiling water for 3days then added 2.5lb sugar,8pints water and juice of a lemon plus yeast and yeast nutrient for 4days, then strained it and added the juice to a DJ.

I didnt realise that you are meant to test the gravity thingy at the start so i didnt. starting bubbling away straight away and i tested to gravity a couple of days later at it was 1050. its now dropped to 1020 after only 4days in DJ. Why is it dropping so rapidly? surely this cant be right as i read should take months to ferment?
Secondly, should i be syphoning it into another DG yet? what is the idea behind transferring it? It is sitiing on a fair bit of sediment stuff at the bottom

Hope you can help and many thanks :drunk:

 

[Moley]

Hi Lissy and welcome to the forum :

Firstly, there's nothing wrong with an elderberry wine as a first attempt, it should really be quite straightforward, its just that Elderberry is a particularly long-term wine and you're probably going to be impatient to have a first brew ready for drinking. This isn't it, start a Wurzel's Orange.

Rewind a bit, you've mentioned 8 pints of water twice, is that a mistake, how much Elderberry have you got on the go?

If the temperature is medium to high, it's not uncommon to get that sort of gravity drop in a few days, most fermentations will take anywhere from 2 - 6 weeks. Just because it has fermented out doesn't mean it's finished, that can indeed take several months.

Don't be in too much of a hurry to syphon it off the sediment just yet, let it carry on working.

 

[lisy27]

Hi Moley,

Thanks for the reply.

Mistake on my behalf typing 8 pints water twice I meant to say once.Ive got 1 DJ of it.

Do you think i should be adding more sugar? and when do i know to transfer to another DJ? I was thinking it sitting on sediment at the bottom is not good for it? temp is about 62F. Its in the spare bedroom (have not got an airing cuboard, which i see some peeps reccomend)

If the hydro reading was alot lower than what it should of been at the start (ive read on here most wines are about 1090/1080 to start) what will happen?

Sorry for the hundred and one questions :whistle:

 

[Moley]

No, don't add more sugar, if you've used 2.5lbs and extracted around 4oz from your elderberries that would give you an OG around 1.104, heading for about 14% alcohol. You did say it was a few days before you took a reading.

Don't worry about the sediment, a lot of your yeasties are living and working in there, you shouldn't leave wines sitting on gunk for months on end but for the first few weeks it's fine :thumb:

Don't apologise for the questions, there's no such thing as a stupid queston (although you may get some stupid answers) and it gives us insomniacs something to do

 

[lisy27]

awww, thanks so much for that then! I was worried when read reading at 1050 after only few days cause didnt think it would drop that quick so soon!

Its reading 1010 today, does fermentation always end at 990 or can it go lower than that? :hmm:

 

[Moley]

I've had wines go as low as .988, but I've also had them stop at 1.000
There are no rules, it depends upon all sorts of stuff.
For Elderberry, low .99s is probably about right.

 

[lisy27]

My hydro only goes to 990! :shock: so would the alcohol content be lower or higher the dryer the wine goes :wha: or does that have nothing to do with it? Im still trying to get my head around all this number lark!lol. For example, say if i had a must that started off at 1060/1070 what would happen?The lower the number does that mean the finished alcohol level will be less? :hmm:

 

[Aleman]

Its the difference between the two numbers that is important . . If you had two wines one starting at 1.070 and finishing at 1.000 and one that started at 1.060 finishing at 0.990, they would both have the same abv. . . . The greater the difference the higher the abv . . . . assuming you don't cheat and add sugar half way through

 

[Moley]

Alcoholic strength has got nothing to do with how sweet or dry your wine ends up. The hydrometer reading is just a measure of how much sugar is dissolved in solution. As a guide you can say that 1010 is sweet, 1000 is medium and 990 is dry.

If you know your start reading and your end reading you can work the alcohol out from that. Effectively, the higher it starts the stronger it will be.

Say yours started at 1100 and ends at 995, take one from the other and you've got a drop of 105
Divide that drop by 7.36 and that gives you 14.3% abv.

 

[lisy27]

ahh, i think im with ya! lol.so what happens if ive started a wine at 1070 and i think its going to finish at 990 but want to add more sugar to try and get the ABV up?how would you calculate it then? :hmm: or would it not turn out as well because ive added the sugar half way through?

 

[Moley]

Adding sugar half way is fine. Dissolve it in a splash of boiling water first, but it really doesn't need much water. For a 10 point gravity rise you will need about 4.5oz of sugar to the gallon, so 9oz if you want to send your 1070 to a net 1090

 

[lisy27]

ooohh, think ive got a prob with my above mentioned wineo...it wasnt bubbling away about a week ago - reading was 990 and i thought maybe the sugar had all been ate but the yeast was still alive so i added 4oz of sugar i think it was thinking it would 'feed' the yeast (but first i syphoned into fresh demi with a campen tab as alot of gunk on bottom) but it didnt start bubbling again so i presume fermentation had finished anyway!! Question is have i messed it up by adding the sugar when its finished fementing? and what do i do now!?

 

[Moley]

At .990 when you racked there would still have been some fairly knackered but only dozing yeasties transferred over. However, your Campden could have knocked them out cold.

Leave the jar somewhere warm for a week and see if there's any airlock activity, but I would guess it's finished, move the jar somewhere cool and leave it to clear.

4oz of sugar from .990 should have brought it back around .998 so that should be quite acceptable.

 

[lisy27]

Thanks for you quick reply as normal Moley! :clap: I added the campden when syphoned into fresh demi as i believed that it is just used to sterilise and only killed off yeast when used in conjunction with pot sorbate? :wha: im confused now :wha: (that isnt easy as im sure youve guessed!lol)

So...do i need to just leave the wine to mature in the dj its in now then or do another transfer in a few months? The recipe said takes 6-12months to be ready and i presumed it would be fermenting for most of that time, not just a few wks you see. I didnt add any sorbate or anything into the new dj.

 

[Moley]

Campdens will kill most of the yeasties and stun the rest, sorbate stops any survivors from reproducing.

Elderberry is a long-term wine, fermentation will take the usual few weeks but it will taste harsh and unpleasant. Rack as you have done, put it away somewhere cool for 3 months, rack again if it's thrown another light sediment, then leave it a few months longer. I've got an Elderberry & Blackcurrant (from frozen fruit) which I started in March, the harshness has gone and it seems about ready for bottling now, but I will still leave the bottles a while longer before drinking.