So i've been making wines for about a year, and have gotten pretty good with store bought juices. Yesterday i decided to press my own juice. I went with strawberry, cause it sounded good to me, and strawberries were on sale. So i got home and got to pressing. I made about a gallon, pasteurized it, added 6 cups of sugar to obtain my goal SG of 1.156. I want a sweet wine, so i plan on taking multiple readings until i get a 10% ABV then adding sodium metabisulfite to arrest fermentation, Potassium sorbates to prevent any re-fermentation of the remaining sugar. I put in a one gallon carboy, and airlocked it after pitching my Lalvin K1-V1116 starter with a tsp of diamonnium phosphate, airlocked it and sat in on my desk. I always put new recepies and new experiments on my desk to ferment in a one gallon jar. That way i can keep an eye on the progression, and if the recepie is crap, i didn't waist 5 gallons. So i sat in on my desk and i began to foam and ferment well.
It looks like it will be great wine!
This morning i wake up, and we have a problem. The foam buildup has pressurized my airlock, how i don't know. But somehow this happened;
It's not just a little on the celling, I am still in disbelief. It covered everything on my desk, and even got my dog who was sleeping at the foot of my bed. I've cleaned the airlock, and put it back on, but i'm still fighting the foam buildup. Is there something i can use to supress foam? I've never had a problem like this with store bought juice. I don't know if it has something to do with the fact that i pressed it, or the insane amount of sugar added. Either way i am determined not to loose this batch, it smells so good fermenting! Please let me know if you have any advice.
A couple of things, as bad as it looks a vigorous ferment like this is a "good" thing. It means your yeast is liking the available resources you provided for it to survive on throughout it's lifecycle.
Other suggestions would be, start with a lower starting gravity(like something to just barely reach 10% ABV as that is what you want to shoot for anyway) and if you want it sweet, once you stop the fermentation as you described you can then backsweeten it to taste. It's more accurate that way and you can always get it to your taste because you didn't front load all the sugar. If this doesn't ferment out you might end up too sweet and then what do you do?
As far as the spill, I'd suggest if you want it on your desk to put it in a pot or bowl in the future. The wall spray is something you really couldn't avoid unless you covered it with a t-shirt and only pulled up the shirt to check it once in a while. Probably got some solids from the strawberries in the airlock and blocked it up until the pressure blew it off, it happens.
My buddy had that happen with a bannana batch he did. I laughed at him too.
It also happened to me with an IPA Beer once. Not so funny that time.
"You only have power over people so long as you don't take everything from them. Once you've robbed them of everything, they're no longer in your power. They're free again."
It's a bitter sweet thing in my eyes, I know the yeast took to my sugars very well, but damn it made a mess. I'll try the bowl and tshirt idea next time. So next fresh pressed wine I won't add so much sugar, and I'll back sweeten. Trial and error.
Is a "blow off tube" an airlock extension, or what?
towercrane wrote:It's a bitter sweet thing in my eyes, I know the yeast took to my sugars very well, but damn it made a mess. I'll try the bowl and tshirt idea next time. So next fresh pressed wine I won't add so much sugar, and I'll back sweeten. Trial and error.
Is a "blow off tube" an airlock extension, or what?
Ive done the same thing with damson plum wine i made in coke bottles when i was 12!
Blow off tube is a wide ~1" tube used instead of an airlock from your fermenter to another large bottle.
Where has all the rum gone? . . .
Every new member should read this before doing anything else:
Okay I understand a blow off tube now. I image searched it and figured it out. I'll have to do that next time, but the foam has greatly subsided, and is no longer overflowing from my airlock. I was fearing i'd be fighting this for two weeks, but it seems to have slowed down a bit. I took a reading and i'm sitting on 4.5% ABV already, so I'll check it in a few days. I crash cooled the must from my sample to kill the yeast, and it is amazing! slightly carbonated, without a trace of alcohol flavor! but that's 4.5%, and not my target 10%.
