First time making wine. Advice needed please

[lenny1976]

Hi I started a kit of Wilkinsons red wine on Tuesday 3rd December. Now according to the instructions it should have stopped fermenting after a week and ready for the next stage. It will be 2 weeks tomorrow and still going quite rapidly.
Have I done anything wrong?
It is the first wine I have ever made so not sure what to do now.
Any advice please?

 

[LeedsBrewer]

Hey Lenny,

Do you have a hydrometer? If not go and get one from Wilkinsons, should only cost about £3 and get a trial jar, also in wilkos for a couple of quid in the brewery section. Oh and a turkey baster for 80p in the cooking section.

Sanitise the turkey baster by pouring a kettle of boiling water over it, fill your trial jar with your wine using said turkey baster.

Float the hydrometer in the jar and write down the reading.

Do the same in 2 days time. If the reading is the same then the fermentation has finished. Do not judge fermentation by bubbles in airlocks. This is by no means an accurate measurement.

:thumb:

 

[LeedsBrewer]

Oh and just to clarify, the reading on the hydrometer should start high and finish low. So when you take the reading it'll probably be between 0.990 and 1.000 Final Gravity.

If it's still very high (like 1.040) then you have a stuck fermentation and need to look at restarting it. If this is the case just post on here and we'll happily help you out. :thumb:

 

[Moley]

Do not judge fermentation by bubbles in airlocks. This is by no means an accurate measurement.

No airlock activity doesn't necessarily mean that nothing is happening, just that the pressure might be escaping some other way.

If the airlock IS bubbling then I don't see what better indicator you need. Count the bubble rate and then see if it has slowed after another couple of days.

If it's still very high (like 1.040) then you have a stuck fermentation and need to look at restarting it.

Nonsense, Lenny said it's still going quite rapidly so how can it be stuck?

Lenny: Take a hydrometer reading by all means to get an idea of how far it has gone or how long it might still need, but kit instructions are frequently optimistic. If its temperature is a little on the cool side then fermentation will take longer, but that's actually a good thing.

 

[LeedsBrewer]

I've taken SG readings before (0.993) and the bubbling has continued for several days but the SG reading never dropped any lower. I assumed this was just excess CO2 escaping?? You recon I should leave them till the bubbles stop?? :?

Lenny - Best advice given to me was "When it comes to wine - Moley's the man to ask" :thumb:

 

[Moley]

I've taken SG readings before (0.993) and the bubbling has continued for several days but the SG reading never dropped any lower. I assumed this was just excess CO2 escaping?? You reckon I should leave them till the bubbles stop??

Like I said, count or time the bubbles. If the gravity's in the low 0.99s and you're just getting one or two bloops per minute then it's probably time to move on to the next step.

You can often get a bloop through the airlock from dissolved gases being released if the wine is warmed up a degree or two, or just from thermal expansion of any headspace, so you were right that you can't judge fermentation from the occasional bubble, but you can if it's regular.