I made a WOW on 5th Feb with a tried and trusted recipe using vin classe wine yeast. After twenty-four hours nothing was happening so I added some Young's yeast compound. Fermentation took off within two hours. Over the next two days, I regularly had to clean foam from the airlock. The PET demijohn was only filled to 4.5 litres. The gravity dropped rapidly at first, from 1.104 to 1.043 in nine days but then it slowed down. Now, after three weeks it is still fermenting but very slowly. The airlock bubbles every ten seconds but just one, small bubble.
The gravity is now 1.008 and dropping one point per day. Previous wines have reached 0.995 but I don't think this will. I used granulated sugar instead of caster sugar and I used a water bath to counteract the cold nights. Setting was 19.5C. Any ideas? Thanks.
My slow WOW finally stopped at 1.006. I'll rack it off and stabilise it and see if it's drinkable. A sneaky taste was a bit sweet for my taste.
I have not started my elderberry port yet. My wife hates the smell so I boil them up outside and the weather is not suitable yet - too cold and too wet and windy most days.
I've bought some dextrose for my next WOW.
I inverted the granulated sugar for my next WOW. After an hour's boiling, it did turn a pale amber but the boiling point had only risen to 112C. It was very thick when I cooled it!
My invert WOW (should that be MOM?) is doing very nicely. SG has dropped from 1.116 to 1.086 in two days. I hope I did not use too much invert? About 800g.
