Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks!

Well I've just done a quick test to see how my 2 x 1 gallon batches of apple and blackberry are getting on - actually I tested the gallon of plum as well.

The plum is sitting nicely on about 1.000 so I reckon it's finished fermenting, but the two apple and blackberry ones, one gallon is sitting at about 1020 and the other one is sitting on about 1035 to 1040.

The fuckers! I wonder what's made them stick like that. I'm pretty sure that all the numbers were fine when I started them.

It means that I'll probably have to mix them together and run a restart routine.......

It's basically a process where you take an alcohol tolerant yeast, rehydrate it, then take a little of the stuck must and dilute it with the same amount of water. You pitch the newly rehydrated yeast into that and let it get on for about a day, then add the same amount of the stuck must again, leaving it to start to ferment fully, then you double it again etc. When you've got about between 1/4 to 1/3 of the stuck must fermenting again, you pitch the lot back into the rest of the stuck fermentation. You would probably need to add some yeast nutrient to it before mixing the newly re-fermenting must into the main body of the stuck must! It should then, in theory, ferment out to dryness Ok.

It looks quite straight forward, but it's a bit of a pain in the arse. I'll have to mix the two gallons of stuck must together, then treat it as one. I originally used RC212 yeast as it's good for retaining more of the fruitiness of a red/red fruit wine, but I'm gonna have to try and use K1V-1116 instead as that might knock the fruitiness back a bit and when the ferments finished it might be a little "rough" and need to be aged some, but it has a good reputation when it's been used in wines that are aged. Plus it'll probably be better than trying EC-1118 which is a champagne yeast and I don't want to end up with a red wine that tastes like a dry white!

Fuck! this wine making lark can be a PITA sometimes.

Ah well.

TTFN