Honestly George I’ve been watching your videos forever I dont comment a lot but you help me out and it worked by separating it and adding some water boss thank you
Thank you George for returning my call and putting my mind at ease. I had an all grain mash that finished in just 4 days, but now I know this is normal. I liked your hamburger metaphor, " it takes longer to eat 10 hamburgers than 4 if they are put in front of you." Well, it was far better coming from you somehow than when I typed it here, but Thanks!
Had a batch stall out this week and I tried something new. First I added 4 gallons of spring water to dilute the ph a bit then added half a tsp per gallon of yeast nutrient and gave it a good mix with the drill. In the matter of minutes it had formed a nice cap and was rolling on. It stalled at .02 and after the fix it was done 3 day later.
I actually had a short piece on oxygenating that I was going to add but thought it was a little out of the ordinary and just din't fit right. I will do a separate video on that real soon. Good minds think alike. Thanks George
I've had numerous stuck fermentations. The best advice I can add to this discussion is to keep the wort circulating. Agitation is key. And also, that it doesn't overheat. I have no issue that way in winter and living in Canada. I use a large plastic pail with a fish tank pump running 24/7 dunked into it, and plastic cover with folded towel. It's not a perfect seal, but doesn't matter. Never had a stuck fermentation since.
You nailed it, the only thing I could possibly add is check your ph level. Usually as it ferments the ph drops and yeast will stop fermenting below the 4.2 to 3.8 range. Your water trick in most places will solve that problem or you could just pitch some baking soda to bring the ph up to an optimal 5.4 - 5.7.
Hello Spike, In my case i did not see the bubble formation and now it's about 4-5 days lapsed after brew day. In this case also should i try to heat it up ?
Here's a tip if low temperature is a problem. I'll hang my heating pad that I use for my back on the side of the primary fermenter and wrap a towel around it. The gentle heat will slowly raise the temperature and kickstart fermentation.
Thanks George, you're the best bro. (2 hour post script) Right on the money George, I split the batch, topped with water, and soon as I hit temp my little beauties were chewing away. I'm making a blood peach/mango brandy. The wife was growling about what goes in the pot and what goes in the still so I doubled the sugar (just to get her on a good rip) Haha what can I say, can't live with them, can't ferment them.
my rum mash seems to have stalled. i will go home today and check some of these things. mine is an open ferment. has a lid just not sealed. my ph was 5.2 and 1.080 sg. seems to have stopped but not t .99 yet. close but not there. temp is 79 so maybe I will turn it down. great video
Thanks for the advice in this video. I'm fermenting my 1st batch and it got stuck after two days. I opened the lid and gave it a good stir and it looks like fermentation is back again.
Thanks for this advice!! You described EXACTLY whats going on with my ginger beer and red wine. Temps dipped and i saw less to no bubbling and yeast at the bottom
Loved the video. My orange mash stopped today made it last monday. 50lbs oranges 16 gallons water and 28lbs sugar. Reading before pitching yeast was 1.085 and today I'm at 1.020 I have stirred and done temp check. All good. Used red star Champaign yeast blue packs. I cannot get anything out of the airlock....
Thanks George! my Heff was stuck in "Arrested Development" mode and adding only 12oz of distilled water did the trick! A nice 4.5% alcohol and a crisp non sugary taste!
Day 6 into a 6 gallon wine making process and fermentation seems to have stopped. Going to stir it up and see if I can kick start it before resorting to adding yeast nutrients. Thanks so much for the video.
George!!! I have a 3 gallon fast fermenter (plastic, conical fermenter on the stand) and I first used it to make a white grape peach wine from juice bought in the plastic jugs. It fermented a little slowly but worked well enough. I did notice some juice/wine between the metal stand and the main plastic vessel, indicating a leak. The leak eventually stopped on its own; I assume the sugars hardened in the cracks. Now, I have another bottled juice that I am trying to ferment, a cran-tropical juice. I used 2.5 gallons of the juice (no sorbates in the ingredients), 4 lbs table sugar, and 71B yeast on 7/11/2021 and had an original gravity of 1.110. On 7/29 I tested it and got a 1.090 gravity reading and a week later on 8/7/2021 got a reading somewhere between 1.080 and 1.085 gravity. Still not showing bubbles; assuming this is from a leak in the vessel. But, it has been almost a month and the gravity is still reading THIS high??? I closed the ball valve, removed the lease bottle at the bottom and poured it back into the fermenter, added some yeast DAP and fermaid-o to it to help kick off fermentation again. It's been 3 days now and still not bubbler activity. 1) How can I find this hairline crack/hole and how can I patch it? 2) Is my fermentation stuck and how can I get it going again?
When you take the wine out and put it in a jar, divide the jar - add water to each jar topping up the wine. My Dumb question is then you leave it out for how long before re introducing back into your primary fermentor?
Thank you I didn't doing this for a long while and never had this problem and I didn't know how to describe it but you answered my question I had videos have a good day don't let you Barrel go dry
Thank you!!! Started my Baby Step Bourbon 2 days ago (grav b4 sugar 1.055 and 1.085 after sugar). Pitched at about 95f and still no activity in bubbler. Will check temp and give a good stir to see if that helps. Thanks for the great tips!
George, in my experience solutions to avoiding a stuck ferment vary depending on what you are fermenting. For wine, a yeast nutrient added 1/3 of the way into the ferment (measured by SG) is often done as a matter of course. For fruit other than grapes,, adding sugar in stages can help keep things in balance. For a beer wort or a whiskey mash, assuming a good Original Gravity and aeration before yeast pitching, usually all you need is to keep your ferment in the right temperature range for the yeast. I always proof my yeast by making a starter with warm water and a little wash or wort to make sure the yeast is viable. Check your expiration dates and store your yeast at the proper temperature. If you are careful and use sanitary procedures, good yeast, and proper temperatures, you will avoid a stuck ferment. Patience helps too! Great to see you and always enjoy your videos!
This is great. Youi even describe staged fermentation ( I have a video on that too) where you add sugars throughout the process in steps. Very well done sir. Appreciate it so much George
@ 4:07 .... never heard this before, but, gave it a stir, put the lid back on I'll be damned if that wasn't my problem!! MUCH THANKS GEORGE!.... kept thinking it was temperature....
On secondary racking I thought had stuck fermentation . Took 3 days to figure it out . Transferred a 2 gallon into 2-1 gallon jugs and the one was bubbling but the other wasn't. So had me puzzled, did the stir you mentioned and still no bubbling ? I seen CO2 in jug happening . Anyway the fix was spraying the Cork with sanitizer solution and started bubbling. Just wasn't air tight but the water helped . Watch alot of your videos thanks for all the advice ! Hope this might help as well.
My yeast stuck and it dawned on me that I forgot to check the PH. Well it was at 3, I added some baking soda and added some hot water to bring up my temp plus dilute it just a little since I had a pretty high SPG. Gave it a stir and it is coming back to life.
I had a 1:1 sugar syrup left over from my bees that I thought I could ferment. So I incorporated yeast and nutriment, the process started happily but the it stopped. So I added more yeast with no effect so I added nutriment to my sugar wash it foamed over like Old Faithful... I should have watched your videos. Thanks!
I just make ginger beer with a ginger bug in plastic bottles. I leave the bottle cap loose for twelve hours and then crew it tight, burping every twelve hours. Do the pressure make any difference in alcohol production? In the past I also gave it too much air, frequently opening the cap, the drink was then very sour. Don't now if the sugar was eaten up or too much air made the bacteria that's in there with the yeast, make too much lactic acid?
By the way I am a blind distiller and through your advice I have been able to produce quite a good liquor that I enjoy drinking I call it three mesquite Bean vodka
My wine seemed to be coming along fine, I didn't want to disrupt it, but at 7 days I feared I was risking spoiled flavor from too much time with dead yeast. I racked it, and the fermentation has stopped. That seems to always happen. I started out with potential alcohol of 13%, and after racking I read it at 7.5%, so it's not even halfway done. I kinda wish I had just let it sit for a while longer, and fixed the flavor with clearing. I put in more yeast and still nothing. It's possible it's a bit cool in here.
Great video, thanks, I stuck my 2nd ever kit in a closet and the temp dropped dramatically. Moved fermenter to a warmer location and protected from light, I'm going to go shake it up and hopefully get some activity! My first batch seemed to have a low abv after fermentation and i think my temp was a bit cold... 20 Celcius is the way to go for ales, I understand?
So, my strawberry wine was stuck after its primary fermentation. I stirred, i shook, then on a whim I took a hydro-reading (my set up is VERY amateurish, admittedly; i'm working out of my kitchen and using gallon glass mason jars). Turns out I didn't add enough sugar and it ate it all during primary. So i added a cup of sugar in each jar and stirred and I'll see by tomorrow if that kicks it back up again.
Yeah i'm thinking I aughta start MEASURING things (HA!). Like i said, this is my first run at making wine and i'm just REALLY shooting from the hip. I figured out I've been using too much KMS in my must when my plum must went from a lovely shade of purple to jaundice-yellow in LITERALLY five seconds. "Oh, a quarter teaspoon for FIVE gallons ... WHOOPS" But yeah, the strawberry wine started bubbling up in a couple hours, it really was not enough sugar. Yeast is HUNGRY
Love the channel, I'm having an issue (I think) with a banana wine. After I racked it into a glass demi for the second fermentation it's still bubbling like crazy.. its been a month. Tested with the hydro and still reading 1.1... which means the yeast hasn't ate hardly any of the sugar.. wine still tastes quite sugary. What do you suggest? Re rack, disguard bottom sentiment top up with water and add another pack of yeast? I've followed the exact recipe 4x now with various fruit. Pear apple mixed Berry etc and it was done primary fermentation after a week or two. I'd rack into glass let sit a month or two and it was clear and very dry.. 1.0 on the hydro.. thanks again..
i have searched the web for this problem , my first time its stopped after starting ,well watched you explain why and how to fix , its going again after a stir , thank you i was about to tip it cheers
mine stopped after 5 days, just got done stirring it with a sanitized spoon, hopefully, it will get little active again, was at 1.080 then it went to 1.020 when it stopped, i need it to be dryer.
Hello from South Africa... I made about 3 1/2 litres of a peach juice, ( no preservatives ), added about 600ml of sugar and a tsp of instant yeast, everything was clean. It has been about 12 hours and I see no bubbles on top of the container. It is winter here so not sure if it is a little cool. I don't have access to a hydrometer. I made a previous batch a week ago and used grape instead of peach and that is bubbling away nicely. My question, how long should I wait before adding more yeast? The peach juice was thicker and had a good amount of pulp in it. I have the container in a warm, darkish room and have tried to leave it alone. Any advice would be appreciated. Your channel is amazing!
Saw the video, tried to email you but said invalid so…… I made a honey mash, ran the right temps, used turbo yeast for the first time. It ran Great for 24 hrs than stopped cold and got cold even though the fermentation room is 78-80 degrees. It smells like sewer water. What did I do wrong?
I left my primary outside in the shade it was kind of hot outside like 90 in shade... it fermented well but since I’ve racked it and brought it inside it stopped I tasted it the alcohol is low I put it back outside lol I’m obviously new
i am making a CABERNET SAUVIGNON WINE from a kit. it started to ferment on day one, on day 2 it was very slow. the wine started at 1.070 and 68 degree. i turned up the heating in the home and the wine came up to 72 degree. on the 3rd day, the fermentation was frothy and seamed to really take off. day for the wine just started to extremely fizz. i test test the juice and it was 1.070 and smells carbonated. no i cant get it to stop fizzing nor can i get it to ferments. is this batch garbage or what
Hey, George, I'm working on an old fashioned whiskey recipe. If I'm using dried and fresh corn, red wheat berries, malted barley and Safspirit whiskey yeast, why would I need to add Amylase enzyme? Are the new starch conversion aids merely to help people out of a fermentation issue due to their using "modern" ingredients such as the popular cool-aid style essences, flavorings, and extracts, without the use of grains that offer the yeast its needed sugars and other nutrients? Would I need to add diammonium phosphate and urea? I have a collection of 70 different recipes from the 1700 and 1800s, and they added none of our new starch conversion aids. Sugar is used in only a very few in the late 1800s. Thanks for your help. Brum
You are all over this topic and understand more than most. Amylase is only necessary when there are no malted grains in the mix. If you have malted grains the amylase is already present in the grains and o additional amylase is needed. It is only when you use a product that is starch based and you are not using malted grains when amylase is an important ingredient. Keep up the good work. Happy distiling George
Well, thank you for the compliment, although you need to take some credit. Much of what I know I've learned right here on your channel. This mash I'm getting ready to put together will be my first. I have put off brewing until I fully understood the science involved. One other question, please. I'm malting my own barley, would it be worth my time and effort to also malt the red wheat berries and dry corn. The fresh corn of course will only need a little processing to open up the kernels, and I would normally grist the organic dry corn slightly, but what about malting the wheat and dry corn too? Would it make a major difference, and in what manner?
Malting your own grains can be problematic. The Maltster who is a professional that malts grains has a very stringent set of steps in order to properly malt grains. In a nut shell, the grains are moistened in order to start the germination process and by careful control of humidity and temperature they are stopped at just the right time before being cooked to the desired level. There are several levels available which is why grains have a Lovibond scale which goes from 1 to over 900. The lower the lovibond level the more alpha amylase that it present and as the number increase the available sugars are caramelized to add flavor and depth of aroma. As this process goes above L-10 the amylase is destroyed so any grain selection should be below that number. I'm trying to simplify this as much as possible. This process is delicate and I would hate to see you go through all the hard work and have a failed mash because of the malting process. You can give it a try but I prefer to let the pro's do it for me. The cost is only pennies but well worth it. Hope this helps George
We agree. I've decided to only malt my barley for now, and just use the corn, wheat, and rye as grist-processed dried grain. Ive set up a digital convection rotisserie with a stainless steel mesh nut-roasting basket and two additional heat deflector control panels. I've been experimenting and I've found that I can control the temperature and timing to first dehydrate, and then toast the barley kernels to different levels of color and flavor. I intend to brew different one-gallon finished fermentation to record the results of the different barley malting I come up with. Fun stuff!
Good luck. Let me know how this all works out. I am rooting for you and am impressed with your understanding of the different processes as well as the science behind this great hobby. Happy distilling George
thanx for showing me the way to making some of the best"corn brew" ive come across,.question, my helper forgot the barley in my recipie. can i add barley and appropriate amount of suger after 1 week if i split it, ? again thanks for your help, Dunn
George, I have watched many of your videos and appreciate every one of them but there was one, (I believe) where you spoke of introducing oxygen via a fish pump into your mash. If I wasn't delusional, could you point me into the direction of that video.
Great video George. I've learned a lot from you. I made a triple berry wine with a IG of 1.060, its been over 7 weeks now and even though its fermented through and potassium metabisulphite has been added after degassing it still continues to produce more CO2. Is it that the metabisulphite goes neutral after some time because I've had these tablets over a year
@@BarleyandHopsBrewing Ok, and thank you, i have been having some fermentation issues with a sugar wash, it stalls, i always start with a PH of about 5.1 and after a while it goes down to around 4, i add chalk to bring it back up but it fails to finish fermenting, maybe my SG was too high to begin with, it was 1.092, it ferments down to 1.040 and thats it. Ill try some of the "tricks" from your video. Cheers from Canada
What do you think about the fermenter still going . I used 24 hour turbo yeast. My fermenter has been bubbling fast for over 3 days now. I been out of the game for a while but I have my old recipe cards here this one is just a simple sugar wash. But it won't stop even though usually it would be finished by now
Hi George..... Hope you are well. I tried to ferment lemon juice....twice now, without success. Both times they were freshly picked and pressed ( 3 gallons juice and 3 galons water ) ,all utensils used were properly sanitized and I used proper yeast , filtered water and brown sugar ( like all my other mash products) The first mash was left to ferment for 6 weeks...... and still nothing happened.... tasted like strong lemonade with no alcohol. My second try has been standing for 3 weeks now, and I even tried different yeast..... it still has not fermented ... Could it be that the lemon juice mash PH is too high ? A couple of months ago I made a lemon mash using the entire fruit, peel and all and this fermented and I distilled it in to a perfect lemon brandy. This time I thought I would just use the juice and then freeze distill it ? Any feedback will be highly appreciated.
a leak!!!! yes, that what it should be: I have this carboy filled with 12 ltrs 100% grape juice with saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast (meant for wine as I understood) and in 2 days airlock is still 2 mm dp (differential pressure)... but the airlock is on rubber cap which is not 100% air seal>>>> I sealed it with plastic wrap, tomorrow I will update you.
George , Love the videos there very helpful, Im having a problem where my wine is taking on water being backed up into the wine bottle, i checked the temp and it is a little to chill, but is this why the air and water are backing up intread of burping outward?
@@lilymcalister1825 no what happened is i had the tube in a large container of water on side and it kept sucking the water back into the wine bottle. But i finally tasted it and it was getting a little vinegary. this is the first time i tried this recipe.
I'm stuck, before gravity was 1.10, ph 5.2 and its a 5 gallon batch of corn, barley and rye. Its been stuck at 1.02 now for two weeks. I've agitated several times but nothing. Temp is 75 degs and as high as 83f. Any ideas im missing something? Just pitched some more yeaat
Distilled water has many of the minerals removed so it can cause a great slow down if you use distilled water unless you reintroduce them with nutrients or a little diammonium phosphate.
I used a lil too much yeast 250g🤦🏽♂️ And 5kg sugar it was bubbling very fast yesterday today It’s kinda slow compared to yesterday!!! Should I give it a stir or is it the 250g yeast eating up the sugar too fast??
I'm actually stuck right now! On a stuck start. Iv got 5 gallons of black currant mead, I'm on hours 36 after pitch, perfect temperatures and it just wont kick off! Iv never had anything take longer than overnight to start goin, and theres a smaller 1 gallon jug of the same thing that started going shortly after I pitched, so I repitched the big one about 12 hours ago maybe a little more. STILL NOTHIN! iv been shaking them which helps momentarily but the big one doesnt keep goin, stops immediatly and the airlock pressure actually evens back out! The small one is goin, but why is my big one of the same thing, double pitched, STILL not going?!??? My biggest hope is I just need a bit more patience, but maybe I can run into another solution that can push this along. Any thoughts/suggestions?
@@BarleyandHopsBrewing I have a glass carboy, i should have been more specific. But because of that I thought I had no leaks so it had to be something else! Well i double checked again a little closer as you said and sure enough! Found a crack in the AIRLOCK. Rookie mistake, iv had them crack there before and still work but sometimes it snags the tube inside too and leaves a hole...The 1 gallon and 5 gallon rubber sized are different, so while switching the other rupper stopper for airlock to check if that's what it was, I actually broke the other one too! Oops! Lmao. Good thing i got 6 extra on deck. So lesson learned: always be gentle with airlocks! If it should be goin and it's not, there IS a leak! ... leaks can be sneaky. Problem resolved, thanks george! Thanks george!
I had a recipe for a mead. It called for 2.5 once a of citric acid. I used probably only 1.5-2 once of citric acid. Then my fermentation is really slow hardly any bubbles so I added more yeast. When I started it it had a potential abv of 9% now it says it’s at 10% potential. I racked it into another carboy and there was yeast on the bottom. So I thought the acidity was too high so I added a base to lower the acid level. I added some more yeast. What should I do with this mead? Maybe turn it into a ten gallon batch so the acid level will level out? It’s a 5 gallon batch btw.
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This might be the best novice channel available. Salute.
Holy shit. My cider got stuck after 6 days. Stirred it up and fixed the problem. Your a life saver George
I love your channel George. You are born to teach.
Honestly George I’ve been watching your videos forever I dont comment a lot but you help me out and it worked by separating it and adding some water boss thank you
Thanks George. I find your videos very helpful! Keep it up!
Good sound advice George, thanks for sharing. Cheers from Oz.
Thank you so much George I am a beginner and thanks to your site I seem to be able to get over problems which pop up once again. Thanks
great encouragement. Thanks!
Great video again on the basics. Sometimes going back to basics clears the mind to get through the bs
Cheers from oz
Thank you George for returning my call and putting my mind at ease. I had an all grain mash that finished in just 4 days, but now I know this is normal. I liked your hamburger metaphor, " it takes longer to eat 10 hamburgers than 4 if they are put in front of you." Well, it was far better coming from you somehow than when I typed it here, but Thanks!
Great job!
Cleared up my questions! Thanks!
Had a batch stall out this week and I tried something new. First I added 4 gallons of spring water to dilute the ph a bit then added half a tsp per gallon of yeast nutrient and gave it a good mix with the drill. In the matter of minutes it had formed a nice cap and was rolling on. It stalled at .02 and after the fix it was done 3 day later.
Thanks George 👍
Always good advice
Just keep trying stuff
Absolutely fantastic info as always George! Don’t forget - Oxygenate your wort/mash! Love the channel and the products!!
I actually had a short piece on oxygenating that I was going to add but thought it was a little out of the ordinary and just din't fit right. I will do a separate video on that real soon.
Good minds think alike. Thanks
George
I've had numerous stuck fermentations. The best advice I can add to this discussion is to keep the wort circulating. Agitation is key. And also, that it doesn't overheat. I have no issue that way in winter and living in Canada. I use a large plastic pail with a fish tank pump running 24/7 dunked into it, and plastic cover with folded towel. It's not a perfect seal, but doesn't matter. Never had a stuck fermentation since.
Another great video! Thanks George. I've learned a lot from you.
You nailed it, the only thing I could possibly add is check your ph level. Usually as it ferments the ph drops and yeast will stop fermenting below the 4.2 to 3.8 range. Your water trick in most places will solve that problem or you could just pitch some baking soda to bring the ph up to an optimal 5.4 - 5.7.
Awesome advice and a point I forgot to mention.
Thanks. I'm glad that everyone else gets to see these comments.
George
Could i use sodium bicarbonate to bring the ph up?
same as baking soda, if you need to go in the other direction pitch some gypsum
Absolutely.
So how much baking soda do you use per gallon?
90 percent of the time when one is stuck for me I use a emerson heater heat it up to 75 ish while stirring and it fixes the problem
Hello Spike, In my case i did not see the bubble formation and now it's about 4-5 days lapsed after brew day. In this case also should i try to heat it up ?
Here's a tip if low temperature is a problem. I'll hang my heating pad that I use for my back on the side of the primary fermenter and wrap a towel around it. The gentle heat will slowly raise the temperature and kickstart fermentation.
Excellent video George!
thanks good job i came to know something better
Thanks for the information-we appreciate it mate 🥃
If I'm having trouble making shine. Your my go to.
Thank you for the dilution tip , it worked for me during my first try at mashing and distillation. 👍
great video again!
Thank you George
Thank you, George!
Thanks George, you're the best bro. (2 hour post script) Right on the money George, I split the batch, topped with water, and soon as I hit temp my little beauties were chewing away. I'm making a blood peach/mango brandy. The wife was growling about what goes in the pot and what goes in the still so I doubled the sugar (just to get her on a good rip) Haha what can I say, can't live with them, can't ferment them.
Awesome
This really helped me out. Thanks brother!
Much appreciation --- 2021
my rum mash seems to have stalled. i will go home today and check some of these things. mine is an open ferment. has a lid just not sealed. my ph was 5.2 and 1.080 sg. seems to have stopped but not t .99 yet. close but not there. temp is 79 so maybe I will turn it down. great video
Very informative.Thank you 🙏
great video, thumbs up. Don't know anything and this was really helpful.
Thanks for the advice in this video. I'm fermenting my 1st batch and it got stuck after two days. I opened the lid and gave it a good stir and it looks like fermentation is back again.
Thanks George, you confirmed exactly what I did two days ago
Thanks for this advice!! You described EXACTLY whats going on with my ginger beer and red wine. Temps dipped and i saw less to no bubbling and yeast at the bottom
Loved the video. My orange mash stopped today made it last monday. 50lbs oranges 16 gallons water and 28lbs sugar. Reading before pitching yeast was 1.085 and today I'm at 1.020 I have stirred and done temp check. All good. Used red star Champaign yeast blue packs. I cannot get anything out of the airlock....
Great job!
Thanks George! my Heff was stuck in "Arrested Development" mode and adding only 12oz of distilled water did the trick! A nice 4.5% alcohol and a crisp non sugary taste!
excellent video. thanks
Day 6 into a 6 gallon wine making process and fermentation seems to have stopped. Going to stir it up and see if I can kick start it before resorting to adding yeast nutrients. Thanks so much for the video.
How did that go ? I have five gallons that stalled and im thinking of adding more honey 🍯
What did you to get it going again?@@Simsandwichoffical
@@Ceepadilla I tried but that batch failed unfortunately.
@@Simsandwichoffical im in that same predicament now an trying to figure out what to do or just leave it.
@@Ceepadilla
Ph. Get test strip. Needs to be 4-5ish
George!!! I have a 3 gallon fast fermenter (plastic, conical fermenter on the stand) and I first used it to make a white grape peach wine from juice bought in the plastic jugs. It fermented a little slowly but worked well enough. I did notice some juice/wine between the metal stand and the main plastic vessel, indicating a leak. The leak eventually stopped on its own; I assume the sugars hardened in the cracks.
Now, I have another bottled juice that I am trying to ferment, a cran-tropical juice. I used 2.5 gallons of the juice (no sorbates in the ingredients), 4 lbs table sugar, and 71B yeast on 7/11/2021 and had an original gravity of 1.110. On 7/29 I tested it and got a 1.090 gravity reading and a week later on 8/7/2021 got a reading somewhere between 1.080 and 1.085 gravity. Still not showing bubbles; assuming this is from a leak in the vessel. But, it has been almost a month and the gravity is still reading THIS high???
I closed the ball valve, removed the lease bottle at the bottom and poured it back into the fermenter, added some yeast DAP and fermaid-o to it to help kick off fermentation again. It's been 3 days now and still not bubbler activity. 1) How can I find this hairline crack/hole and how can I patch it? 2) Is my fermentation stuck and how can I get it going again?
Thanks George for advises.. good explanation.
My pleasure!
When you take the wine out and put it in a jar, divide the jar - add water to each jar topping up the wine. My Dumb question is then you leave it out for how long before re introducing back into your primary fermentor?
Thank you I didn't doing this for a long while and never had this problem and I didn't know how to describe it but you answered my question I had videos have a good day don't let you Barrel go dry
Wish I would have seen this about 2 weeks ago had the exact problem any tips for beating the Texas heat . Great video keep up the great work
Very informative,👍
Thank you!!! Started my Baby Step Bourbon 2 days ago (grav b4 sugar 1.055 and 1.085 after sugar). Pitched at about 95f and still no activity in bubbler. Will check temp and give a good stir to see if that helps. Thanks for the great tips!
Temp is steady 76f. Gave a good stir and we are bubbling! Yay!
I hate it when that happens
George, in my experience solutions to avoiding a stuck ferment vary depending on what you are fermenting. For wine, a yeast nutrient added 1/3 of the way into the ferment (measured by SG) is often done as a matter of course. For fruit other than grapes,, adding sugar in stages can help keep things in balance. For a beer wort or a whiskey mash, assuming a good Original Gravity and aeration before yeast pitching, usually all you need is to keep your ferment in the right temperature range for the yeast.
I always proof my yeast by making a starter with warm water and a little wash or wort to make sure the yeast is viable. Check your expiration dates and store your yeast at the proper temperature.
If you are careful and use sanitary procedures, good yeast, and proper temperatures, you will avoid a stuck ferment. Patience helps too!
Great to see you and always enjoy your videos!
This is great. Youi even describe staged fermentation ( I have a video on that too) where you add sugars throughout the process in steps. Very well done sir.
Appreciate it so much
George
Wohhh
@ 4:07 .... never heard this before, but, gave it a stir, put the lid back on
I'll be damned if that wasn't my problem!! MUCH THANKS GEORGE!.... kept thinking it was temperature....
Awesome
On secondary racking I thought had stuck fermentation . Took 3 days to figure it out . Transferred a 2 gallon into 2-1 gallon jugs and the one was bubbling but the other wasn't. So had me puzzled, did the stir you mentioned and still no bubbling ? I seen CO2 in jug happening . Anyway the fix was spraying the Cork with sanitizer solution and started bubbling. Just wasn't air tight but the water helped . Watch alot of your videos thanks for all the advice ! Hope this might help as well.
My yeast stuck and it dawned on me that I forgot to check the PH. Well it was at 3, I added some baking soda and added some hot water to bring up my temp plus dilute it just a little since I had a pretty high SPG. Gave it a stir and it is coming back to life.
Awesome
I had a 1:1 sugar syrup left over from my bees that I thought I could ferment. So I incorporated yeast and nutriment, the process started happily but the it stopped. So I added more yeast with no effect so I added nutriment to my sugar wash it foamed over like Old Faithful... I should have watched your videos. Thanks!
Great, this is all stuff I've experienced brewing, and the same solutions that worked for me.
Thank you soooo much that video really helped me with my wine. I found it was a leak in my lid,
Thanks George for sharing your knowledge. BTW what is this intro song. love it. could you mention it..
I just make ginger beer with a ginger bug in plastic bottles. I leave the bottle cap loose for twelve hours and then crew it tight, burping every twelve hours. Do the pressure make any difference in alcohol production? In the past I also gave it too much air, frequently opening the cap, the drink was then very sour. Don't now if the sugar was eaten up or too much air made the bacteria that's in there with the yeast, make too much lactic acid?
By the way I am a blind distiller and through your advice I have been able to produce quite a good liquor that I enjoy drinking I call it three mesquite Bean vodka
Thank you....
You're welcome!
My wine seemed to be coming along fine, I didn't want to disrupt it, but at 7 days I feared I was risking spoiled flavor from too much time with dead yeast. I racked it, and the fermentation has stopped. That seems to always happen. I started out with potential alcohol of 13%, and after racking I read it at 7.5%, so it's not even halfway done. I kinda wish I had just let it sit for a while longer, and fixed the flavor with clearing. I put in more yeast and still nothing. It's possible it's a bit cool in here.
How to stop the fermentation at the required level of alchahol
nice. thank you
Great video, thanks, I stuck my 2nd ever kit in a closet and the temp dropped dramatically. Moved fermenter to a warmer location and protected from light, I'm going to go shake it up and hopefully get some activity! My first batch seemed to have a low abv after fermentation and i think my temp was a bit cold... 20 Celcius is the way to go for ales, I understand?
So, my strawberry wine was stuck after its primary fermentation. I stirred, i shook, then on a whim I took a hydro-reading (my set up is VERY amateurish, admittedly; i'm working out of my kitchen and using gallon glass mason jars). Turns out I didn't add enough sugar and it ate it all during primary. So i added a cup of sugar in each jar and stirred and I'll see by tomorrow if that kicks it back up again.
Good solution.
Good luck and let us know how it progresses.
Yeah i'm thinking I aughta start MEASURING things (HA!). Like i said, this is my first run at making wine and i'm just REALLY shooting from the hip. I figured out I've been using too much KMS in my must when my plum must went from a lovely shade of purple to jaundice-yellow in LITERALLY five seconds.
"Oh, a quarter teaspoon for FIVE gallons ... WHOOPS"
But yeah, the strawberry wine started bubbling up in a couple hours, it really was not enough sugar. Yeast is HUNGRY
Any hacks on how to warm it up in the summer when the AC is running without fancy brewing tools? Currently hovering around 68° and no more bubbling.
Hey mate don't you stop wine fermentation by putting it in the freezer for bottling in 30 Celsius plus weather? Cheers 😃
Love the channel, I'm having an issue (I think) with a banana wine. After I racked it into a glass demi for the second fermentation it's still bubbling like crazy.. its been a month. Tested with the hydro and still reading 1.1... which means the yeast hasn't ate hardly any of the sugar.. wine still tastes quite sugary. What do you suggest? Re rack, disguard bottom sentiment top up with water and add another pack of yeast? I've followed the exact recipe 4x now with various fruit.
Pear apple mixed Berry etc and it was done primary fermentation after a week or two. I'd rack into glass let sit a month or two and it was clear and very dry.. 1.0 on the hydro.. thanks again..
Hallo George.
Could you make a peach wine out canned fruits Please, or fresh???
thanks Helmut
I started my hard cider 3 days ago and I’ve got nothing going on. There are a few tiny bubbles but nothing in the airlock.
Simple solutions. Thank you. I got stuck and checked my seal and bingo! problem solved
i have searched the web for this problem , my first time its stopped after starting ,well watched you explain why and how to fix , its going again after a stir , thank you i was about to tip it cheers
mine stopped after 5 days, just got done stirring it with a sanitized spoon, hopefully, it will get little active again, was at 1.080 then it went to 1.020 when it stopped, i need it to be dryer.
Oh, temperature!! Yeah, the room my ferments are in is about 57F right now. I guess I need to break out the heat mat for my Blaand.
Hello from South Africa...
I made about 3 1/2 litres of a peach juice, ( no preservatives ), added about 600ml of sugar and a tsp of instant yeast, everything was clean. It has been about 12 hours and I see no bubbles on top of the container.
It is winter here so not sure if it is a little cool.
I don't have access to a hydrometer.
I made a previous batch a week ago and used grape instead of peach and that is bubbling away nicely.
My question, how long should I wait before adding more yeast?
The peach juice was thicker and had a good amount of pulp in it.
I have the container in a warm, darkish room and have tried to leave it alone.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Your channel is amazing!
Saw the video, tried to email you but said invalid so…… I made a honey mash, ran the right temps, used turbo yeast for the first time. It ran Great for 24 hrs than stopped cold and got cold even though the fermentation room is 78-80 degrees. It smells like sewer water. What did I do wrong?
I left my primary outside in the shade it was kind of hot outside like 90 in shade... it fermented well but since I’ve racked it and brought it inside it stopped I tasted it the alcohol is low I put it back outside lol I’m obviously new
i am making a CABERNET SAUVIGNON WINE from a kit. it started to ferment on day one, on day 2 it was very slow. the wine started at 1.070 and 68 degree. i turned up the heating in the home and the wine came up to 72 degree. on the 3rd day, the fermentation was frothy and seamed to really take off. day for the wine just started to extremely fizz. i test test the juice and it was 1.070 and smells carbonated. no i cant get it to stop fizzing nor can i get it to ferments. is this batch garbage or what
Hey, George, I'm working on an old fashioned whiskey recipe. If I'm using dried and fresh corn, red wheat berries, malted barley and Safspirit whiskey yeast, why would I need to add Amylase enzyme? Are the new starch conversion aids merely to help people out of a fermentation issue due to their using "modern" ingredients such as the popular cool-aid style essences, flavorings, and extracts, without the use of grains that offer the yeast its needed sugars and other nutrients? Would I need to add diammonium phosphate and urea? I have a collection of 70 different recipes from the 1700 and 1800s, and they added none of our new starch conversion aids. Sugar is used in only a very few in the late 1800s. Thanks for your help. Brum
You are all over this topic and understand more than most. Amylase is only necessary when there are no malted grains in the mix. If you have malted grains the amylase is already present in the grains and o additional amylase is needed. It is only when you use a product that is starch based and you are not using malted grains when amylase is an important ingredient.
Keep up the good work.
Happy distiling
George
Well, thank you for the compliment, although you need to take some credit. Much of what I know I've learned right here on your channel. This mash I'm getting ready to put together will be my first. I have put off brewing until I fully understood the science involved. One other question, please. I'm malting my own barley, would it be worth my time and effort to also malt the red wheat berries and dry corn. The fresh corn of course will only need a little processing to open up the kernels, and I would normally grist the organic dry corn slightly, but what about malting the wheat and dry corn too? Would it make a major difference, and in what manner?
Malting your own grains can be problematic. The Maltster who is a professional that malts grains has a very stringent set of steps in order to properly malt grains. In a nut shell, the grains are moistened in order to start the germination process and by careful control of humidity and temperature they are stopped at just the right time before being cooked to the desired level. There are several levels available which is why grains have a Lovibond scale which goes from 1 to over 900. The lower the lovibond level the more alpha amylase that it present and as the number increase the available sugars are caramelized to add flavor and depth of aroma. As this process goes above L-10 the amylase is destroyed so any grain selection should be below that number.
I'm trying to simplify this as much as possible. This process is delicate and I would hate to see you go through all the hard work and have a failed mash because of the malting process.
You can give it a try but I prefer to let the pro's do it for me. The cost is only pennies but well worth it.
Hope this helps
George
We agree. I've decided to only malt my barley for now, and just use the corn, wheat, and rye as grist-processed dried grain. Ive set up a digital convection rotisserie with a stainless steel mesh nut-roasting basket and two additional heat deflector control panels. I've been experimenting and I've found that I can control the temperature and timing to first dehydrate, and then toast the barley kernels to different levels of color and flavor. I intend to brew different one-gallon finished fermentation to record the results of the different barley malting I come up with. Fun stuff!
Good luck. Let me know how this all works out. I am rooting for you and am impressed with your understanding of the different processes as well as the science behind this great hobby.
Happy distilling
George
When you find it necessary to pitch more yeast to a stuck fermentation, do you aerate before you do?
thanx for showing me the way to making some of the best"corn brew" ive come across,.question, my helper forgot the barley in my recipie. can i add barley and appropriate amount of suger after 1 week if i split it, ? again thanks for your help, Dunn
I had a mix with the OG of 1.126. Its been 3 weeks and its at 1.070..
Like to try this 👍
George, I have watched many of your videos and appreciate every one of them but there was one, (I believe) where you spoke of introducing oxygen via a fish pump into your mash. If I wasn't delusional, could you point me into the direction of that video.
I got stuck ferment now. Sooo pissed about it. Winter months are a pain in the ass.
Great video George. I've learned a lot from you. I made a triple berry wine with a IG of 1.060, its been over 7 weeks now and even though its fermented through and potassium metabisulphite has been added after degassing it still continues to produce more CO2. Is it that the metabisulphite goes neutral after some time because I've had these tablets over a year
Great video once again George, can a low PH make the yeast stop?
Only if you go to an extreme. There are wines that work best at 3.2.
A good general rule is to keep the PH at or near 5.2
@@BarleyandHopsBrewing Ok, and thank you, i have been having some fermentation issues with a sugar wash, it stalls, i always start with a PH of about 5.1 and after a while it goes down to around 4, i add chalk to bring it back up but it fails to finish fermenting, maybe my SG was too high to begin with, it was 1.092, it ferments down to 1.040 and thats it. Ill try some of the "tricks" from your video. Cheers from Canada
How much turbo yeast can I add to my rose hip wine in demijhon
What do you think about the fermenter still going . I used 24 hour turbo yeast. My fermenter has been bubbling fast for over 3 days now. I been out of the game for a while but I have my old recipe cards here this one is just a simple sugar wash. But it won't stop even though usually it would be finished by now
24 hour yeast ferments beyond 24 hours. Just let it go until it stops and you'll get high alc
Hi George.....
Hope you are well.
I tried to ferment lemon juice....twice now, without success.
Both times they were freshly picked and pressed ( 3 gallons juice and 3 galons water ) ,all utensils used were properly sanitized and I used proper yeast , filtered water and brown sugar ( like all my other mash products)
The first mash was left to ferment for 6 weeks...... and still nothing happened.... tasted like strong lemonade with no alcohol.
My second try has been standing for 3 weeks now, and I even tried different yeast..... it still has not fermented ...
Could it be that the lemon juice mash PH is too high ?
A couple of months ago I made a lemon mash using the entire fruit, peel and all and this fermented and I distilled it in to a perfect lemon brandy.
This time I thought I would just use the juice and then freeze distill it ?
Any feedback will be highly appreciated.
a leak!!!! yes, that what it should be: I have this carboy filled with 12 ltrs 100% grape juice with saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast (meant for wine as I understood) and in 2 days airlock is still 2 mm dp (differential pressure)... but the airlock is on rubber cap which is not 100% air seal>>>> I sealed it with plastic wrap, tomorrow I will update you.
George , Love the videos there very helpful, Im having a problem where my wine is taking on water being backed up into the wine bottle, i checked the temp and it is a little to chill, but is this why the air and water are backing up intread of burping outward?
What do you mean? Are you getting foam like stuff in the airlock?
@@lilymcalister1825 no what happened is i had the tube in a large container of water on side and it kept sucking the water back into the wine bottle. But i finally tasted it and it was getting a little vinegary. this is the first time i tried this recipe.
I'm stuck, before gravity was 1.10, ph 5.2 and its a 5 gallon batch of corn, barley and rye. Its been stuck at 1.02 now for two weeks. I've agitated several times but nothing. Temp is 75 degs and as high as 83f. Any ideas im missing something? Just pitched some more yeaat
Will this work with ginger beer?
How long it take for bubbles to come out of the airlock
If lucky next day to be noticeable.
Hi my name is Terry in Australia .My sugar wash while fermentation is taking place as dropped in volume is that correct
Can the water cause it not to ferment? Distilled water?
Distilled water has many of the minerals removed so it can cause a great slow down if you use distilled water unless you reintroduce them with nutrients or a little diammonium phosphate.
Thank you, thats what I thought.
Mine has bubles but the airlock do t show nothing
I used a lil too much yeast 250g🤦🏽♂️
And 5kg sugar it was bubbling very fast yesterday today It’s kinda slow compared to yesterday!!! Should I give it a stir or is it the 250g yeast eating up the sugar too fast??
I'm actually stuck right now! On a stuck start. Iv got 5 gallons of black currant mead, I'm on hours 36 after pitch, perfect temperatures and it just wont kick off! Iv never had anything take longer than overnight to start goin, and theres a smaller 1 gallon jug of the same thing that started going shortly after I pitched, so I repitched the big one about 12 hours ago maybe a little more. STILL NOTHIN! iv been shaking them which helps momentarily but the big one doesnt keep goin, stops immediatly and the airlock pressure actually evens back out! The small one is goin, but why is my big one of the same thing, double pitched, STILL not going?!??? My biggest hope is I just need a bit more patience, but maybe I can run into another solution that can push this along. Any thoughts/suggestions?
Check the gravity. I bet you have a leak around your fermenter lid.
@@BarleyandHopsBrewing I have a glass carboy, i should have been more specific. But because of that I thought I had no leaks so it had to be something else! Well i double checked again a little closer as you said and sure enough! Found a crack in the AIRLOCK. Rookie mistake, iv had them crack there before and still work but sometimes it snags the tube inside too and leaves a hole...The 1 gallon and 5 gallon rubber sized are different, so while switching the other rupper stopper for airlock to check if that's what it was, I actually broke the other one too! Oops! Lmao. Good thing i got 6 extra on deck.
So lesson learned: always be gentle with airlocks!
If it should be goin and it's not, there IS a leak! ... leaks can be sneaky.
Problem resolved, thanks george!
Thanks george!
I had a recipe for a mead. It called for 2.5 once a of citric acid. I used probably only 1.5-2 once of citric acid. Then my fermentation is really slow hardly any bubbles so I added more yeast. When I started it it had a potential abv of 9% now it says it’s at 10% potential. I racked it into another carboy and there was yeast on the bottom. So I thought the acidity was too high so I added a base to lower the acid level. I added some more yeast. What should I do with this mead? Maybe turn it into a ten gallon batch so the acid level will level out? It’s a 5 gallon batch btw.
You could give it try and see if splitting it helps.