Think I Might Have Cocked This Up

[jordibird]

Hi,
I'm a born again wine maker and have gotten a 30 bottle Wilko Rose kit through fermentation and it is now very clear and is waiting to be racked (tomorrow's task).

While waiting for the brew to do whatever it does and with the very helpful pointer to the post I decided to up the anti and make a WOW variant, sticking like glue to the method in Moley's recipe (thanks Moley). Briefly for 5L I used 1L of pure WGJ together with 1L of Don Simon pure fruit mix (RGJ, strawberry and orange), both of these were 100% pure fruit with nowt added in. 900g of sugar, cup of strong tea for tannin purposes, sachet of Wilko Gervan wine yeast, less than 1/2 tsp of marmite in half cup of boiling wate and 1 tsp of glycerene. The only ingredient that missed out was pectolase which I will be getting tomorrow.

I bought 5L of water from Asda for use as a DJ and here I think the problem lies. Everything was sterilised but then came the fitting of a bung and airlock. Could I hell as like find a suitable drill part to put a hole in the cap for the bung and airlock, so I resorted to a very primative method. This involved several assaults with various sharp implements and eventually snipping away with manicure scissors. I eventually got a hole big enough for the rubber bung. However there where a few gashes from when I got a bit frustrated, this I resolved by wrapping very thick rubber band around the bottom of the bung.

In went the must after a good shake and in went the yeast with another shake and the top with bung and airlock was screwed in place.

So far so good, there was bubbles, and a lot of activity, however this activity was not reflected in the airlock which is just sitting there. Something has definately gone wrong, the must is obviously fermenting but the airlock doesn't want to know. I am using the standard little airlocks and I must admit I prefer the bubble locks.

Any ideas on this chaps and chapesses?

I hopefully have attached 3 photos which may help.

Any advice as always much appreciated

Lezli
:hat:

 

[oldbloke]

The airlock/bung is a poor fit and the gas is escaping elsewhere, is the usual thing. And is nowt to worry about - the locks are just to stop cats falling in, really.

Not seeing the photos, btw.

 

[Moley]

the locks are just to stop cats falling in, really.

:lol: The locks are really to stop much smaller things getting in, fruit / vinegar flies, but they are pretty scarce at the moment as it's too cold.

So you've bodged a rough hole, the gas is escaping round the side and doesn't need to go through the bubbler, that's fine as long as you've covered the gaps as best you can. You could rub some Vaseline around the airlock stem or try a thin roll of blu-tak to improve the seal and get the lock popping.

By the way, you can't add bold tags to topic titles, so I have edited them out. Neither could you add smileys to titles, they don't work. I know you didn't try, but many people do.

 

[jordibird]

Hi,
thanks for the advice I'm over the moon it's not a wasted effort. I am going to get a couple of glass DJs today as well and might invest in a drill bit while I'm at it.
I thought that I would of had to either bin it. or try and decant it into another DJ will try the blue tack and vaseline as well.
As I forgot the pectolase will it be ok to add it after fermentation has finished or do i risk faffing about with the lid and adding it today?
Sorry for all the trivial questions I really should know the answers but have been out of the game too long.
Thanks (sorry for the bold thingy as well I'll behave myself from now on lol)
Lezli :whistle:

 

[Gayle]

I've been using a sterilised balloon as an "airlock" on those water bottles. I stick a pin through a few times so the gas can escape, but it's a balloon so that's probably not even necessary. Clingfilm placed loosely over the top and secured with a rubber band works too. You dont get the fun blooping that an airlock will do, but you don't have to risk your own flesh hacking at bottle caps with sharp instruments (which I have done too, once, never again!) Blue tack squished in around the airlock might improve the seal. I'm sure your wine will be good in any case :thumb:

 

[kieronez]

Hi all,
I'm brand new to this game and am enjoying the basic wine making. I got what i thought was an incredible bargain from Wilkinsons who charged me next to nothing for an end of line Chardonnay kit.........no instructions!!!!
I feel a bit stupid now.......i have had the demijohn fermenting away for 7 days with plenty of activity (or so i have thought) but i did not add any sugar!!! I thought the goo in the tin would be full of sugar???

Is this completely unretreivable ?

Thanks for any adivce,

Kieron

 

[Gayle]

Hi Kieron, I reckon you should be okay adding the sugar now, hopefully someone can tell you how much you need. If you've topped up the water to the full volume already then you might have a slight dilution difference but it should work out fine. I haven't made wine from kits before, but as far as I know the cheaper kits need added sugar and the expensive kits don't!

 

[Moley]

As I forgot the pectolase will it be ok to add it after fermentation has finished or do i risk faffing about with the lid and adding it today?

If your wine is already fermenting, you add the pectolase now as a powder and shake the jar it could get messy. You could mix 1 tsp of pectolase with a splash of water (boiled and cooled to warm) with a sterilised teaspoon in a sterilised mug and add that to your wine, or you could add it at the end of fermentation but then you need twice as much.

Don't apologise for “trivial questions”, if you don't know or need a reminder that's what we're here for.


Kieron: Did you measure an Original Gravity from your kit wine? If it came from Wilkinson's then it's probably a re-badged Young's kit and will need sugar, the mid to high priced kits don't. I assume it's a single gallon 6 bottle kit as you say it's in a DJ ?

If you add dry sugar you will probably get an eruption of froth so you should boil it to a syrup with a little water, allow it to cool and then add that syrup to your wine gradually.

 

[kieronez]

Thanks Gayle and Moley,
The kit definately didn't come with sugar so i have made up a boiled water and sugar mix with approx 250g of sugar (6 bottle kit) and added that and it appears to be fermenting again....how long should i leave this?? (Currently bubbles every 4 or 5 seconds.)

Also having no instructions i don't know which sachet goes in next? I have two, finnings and stabiliser?

Much appreciated,
This is a great forum

Kieron

 

[kieronez]

And i didn't measure the gravity.....the kit cost 20p by the way so i'm not too bothered if this goes wrong i'll try again.
Any recommendations for an easy cheap starter wine kit?

Kieron

 

[jordibird]

Thanks Gayle and Moley,

What a brilliant idea with the balloon it will come in handy if I get a few more bottles, like you I nearly ended up maimed and that was enough!! If I can't seal the leak I might well resort to the balloon :thumb:

I'll do the pectolase in the mug of water thanks Moley, got a feeling that if I add it and shake the jar I might get a wine shower knowing my luck. Thanks for your patience and hopefully I'll get there in the end :wha:

Good Luck with your wine as well Kieren.

Cheers
Lezli

 

[ScottM]

Thanks Gayle and Moley,
The kit definately didn't come with sugar so i have made up a boiled water and sugar mix with approx 250g of sugar (6 bottle kit) and added that and it appears to be fermenting again....how long should i leave this?? (Currently bubbles every 4 or 5 seconds.)

Also having no instructions i don't know which sachet goes in next? I have two, finnings and stabiliser?

Much appreciated,
This is a great forum

Kieron

I think the 6 bottle kits generally require 900g-1kg of sugar.

 

[oldbloke]

Also having no instructions i don't know which sachet goes in next? I have two, finnings and stabiliser?

Ferment, stabilise, de-gas, fining

 

[goodolpete]

Thanks Gayle and Moley, What a brilliant idea with the balloon it will come in handy if I get a few more bottles, like you I nearly ended up maimed and that was enough!! If I can't seal the leak I might well resort to the balloon.

I never use an airlock on 5L PETS:

This is a small freezer bag with a rubber band around.
Pete

 

[jordibird]

Thanks Pete,
it's great to see a picture of how it works. I'm hopefully getting 3 more today and a glass DJ so will be using the methods on here.
Thanks again
Lezli

 

[jordibird]

Hi,
I smeared vaseline around every crevice I could find on the top of the PET and thought stuff it when it didn't work (thanks to the reassurance of everyone here). Just passed the PET before and low and behold there's bleeding air bubbles going through. They don't seem to correspond to the mount Etna eruption going on in the PET so there's still an escape route. But it's doing what it should and I'm a happy bunny again.
I got 4 more 5L water PET's Today and they were 2 for £1.80 at Morrison's in case anyone needs to get some. I'll be doing the methods mentioned here for fermenting the 2 WOW's and the Strawberry Ribena at the weekend.

Cheers everyone
Lezli

 

[kieronez]

Hi Gayle and Moley,
I hope you can recall my predicament about not adding sugar?

I have left the wine with the added sugar for another week and it appeared to be happily fermenting away until yesterday so i added the stabiliser and then the finings a day later. It is pretty clear, but not completely and i conducted an investigatory testing and it is really sweet......quite nice though and definitely alcoholic..tastes a bit like sherry!!!!
Is there anything i can do to take the sweetness away...more yeast perhaps????

thanks for any advice in advance,

Kieron

 

[oldbloke]

Um, with the stabiliser in there, you may be scuppered. Possibly you can get rid of it by heating gently for a while, as is done to remove preservatives from juices so we can ferment them, but there you risk evaporating away all the lovely alcohol.
Or a strong enough yeast colony, built up on sugar elsewhere, /might/ overcome it.

 

[kieronez]

Thanks old bloke,

I think i might drink it like it is.....it is drinkable in this state isn't it??????

I tested the gravity and it is at about 1.017, does that mean anything to you?

Kieron

PS. i take it that stabiliser kills the yeast at the end of the process???? Why would you want to do that!!! Surely it can be left to make more alcohol?

 

[kieronez]

Another question i'm afraid.........

I have just received my next project in the post, a 16L Elderberry sparkling wine set but was a little disappointed to see the end product would be only about 4% alcohol.....i'm no alcoholic but that's a bit weak for wine isn't it? (i was thinking of testing it out on some of my rugby mates and am in danger of a serious fine should they discover this)

Short of adding vodka at the end, is there anything i can do to pep this up?

thanks as usual,

Kieron