Orange gone wrong...Curioser and Curioser...

[Christenstein]

Hey guys,
Was going to do a batch of the world famous WOW, but before it even made it to the demijohn, too much speed and not enough haste resulted in two mistakes which I'm pretty sure have annihalted the wine.

Although this is no big thing (few supermarket juice cartons gone to waste, no biggy), I noticed a couple of things that seemed unusual so thought someone might able to just explain what exactly was happening. Thanks

The things that went wrong were accidently using red grape juice instead of white, and secondly, yeast was accidently added before the campden. This ended in an arugment between me and the wife; my opinon was add the campden tab anyway, and if the yeast suffers too much and don't start fermenting, we'll add more - her opinion, leave out the tabs and hope for the best. A short game of rock, paper scissors resulted in her getting her own way - no change there then.

The resultant peculiarities are that when we checked on the wine after 5 days or so, it had like white/yellow lumps in it; mostly at the bottom but also one or two floating. They looked almost like those honeycomb sweets you can buy, but when i fished one out with a spoon it immediatly collapsed on itself and took on the look of sand in water, couldn't find any reference to this on internet and wondered if anyone could explain.

The second thing is just that fermentation seems to have completed after 5 days - no bubbles that I can see - Im sure theres no place for gas to be leaking out, so is it just a fast fermenter? It has been producing gas and fizzing like made compared to out other batches. Would just take a hydro reading to see if sugars all gone, but haven't got a trial jar yet and thought I'd ask anyway since I wanted to know about the yellow/white lumps.

Thanks guys.
Chris and Lucy

 

[Moley]

Welcome to the forum :

I think that white grape juice gives a slightly better result than red, but there's not much in it.

You don't need campden at the start of a WOW, they are used with country wines to knock out the wild yeasts which live on fruit skins but your fruit juices have most likely already been pasteurised. Your yeasties have obviously taken no notice of the CT whatsoever.

The bits of gunk floating on top and being carried around in suspension are just clumps of fruit pulp, and perfectly normal.

And yes, it's a very fast fermenter. It probably won't have completely finished after 5 days, so stick the airlock back on and leave it alone for a few more days.

 

[Forkbeard]

It probably won't have completely finished after 5 days, so stick the airlock back on and leave it alone for a few more days.

Quick question on that subject if I may Moley. If I choose to stabilise my wines in the sweeter range of the hydrometer, am I right in assuming that that would that stop the "clearing up" process where all the aldehydes get taken out?

 

[Moley]

Yes, I believe you assume correctly.

 

[Christenstein]

Thanks for that Moley - I'll give it some more time and see how it goes then.

It's fermenting at a real snails pace at the mo - I havent even got the patience to sit and watch and wait for a bubble. It definatley is still going though as the water is moving with the pressure over time. Once I get my trial jar I'll take some readings and see where we're at.

 

[Forkbeard]

Ta.