Posted: Sun Nov 29, 15 10:48 pm Post subject: Weird wine !
I've got around 40 gallons of wine brwing in a 225 litre barrel in the garage
However, it's quite cool out there ! and wqith a 300 watt fishtank heater in there set to 24 degrees - I'm only maintaining around 16
I put a whole tub of youngs wine yeast in there but nothing happened - so I bought some pukka "cold yeast" in and after aday it was starting to show signs of life - Now (3 more days) it has a "Head" when you take the top off and feels a little warmer (Broke my thermometer so i can't say for certain ) but whenm you take the toip off it has a still "head" then after a few seconds there is a movement within teh liquid and an upswelling of liquid from teh bottom. a few more seconds, the whole barrel is heaving like a "Rolling boil" type of movement ! The lid is loosely fitted, so as to exclude the vinegar fly and dust - but is certainly not gas tight so I can't see it has a build up of pressure above the liquid - but it Looks like a "Released pressure type of effervescence - any ideas what is going on here ?
Just been out and done it again - Deffo a CO2 surge as it comes out from being dissolved in the fluid. There's no pressure "hiss" either with the lid on or when it is removed as one would expect - but I have no doubt there would be a CO2 "head" above the liquid. Would a simple saturated "blanket" of CO2 above the liquid but without pressure be enough to keep a lot of CO2 dissolved in teh liquid ?
Well I just spent half an hour out there - watching it with the lid off ! - I've never seen a ferment like it in my life before !
With the top completely off the barrel, you can hear it "fizzing" from 6 feet away - even though I am breathing visible "steam" from the coldness of the atmosphere !
I've left it with the lid on but the sealing screw ring left completely off and if it builds up enough pressure, it will lift the lid without (hopefully) blowing the barrel !
I will try tomorrow (later today) to get a video of the ferment and the movement - but in the meanwhile I only have the sugar in the grape juice and 38 kg of additional sugar in there. I think another 6-8 kg should leave us well within tolerance but will have to be careful as adding granulated sugar tends to result in extreme frothing and overspill of the contents.
This yeast is reckoned to ferment to 18% abv so I will try adding sugar tomorrow as I think there is only enough to go to 10-11% and I would rather like to see if I can increase that.
At the current rate I estimate it would use all the sugar in about a week ! Plus I think the reaction is actually raising the temperature of the must. Even though this yeast is supposed to remain active down to 39 F
Having used "Turbo yeast" in the past and had an "acetone taste" resulting, I don't want the yeast attacking the cellulose in the cell walls as I suspect it does with "turbo"
This really is an amazing reaction and I don't want to limit the alcohol production unneccesarily - as It's going to be a "low flavour" wine I intend to add flavour to afterwards so the more alcohol I can get in the more flavour and dilution I can add afterwards and can choose a "strength" in that process !
I intend to leave the door open for a while tomorrow before venturing in there as CO2 is fairly inert - but I don't want suffocating by having the door closed while I'm in there ! and my sugar level should produce around 20 kg of CO2 - which is quite a lot of gas - if it is dumped in an enclosed space all at once !
Chuffed to bits with the yeast tho' and all for a tenner !
Last edited by Falstaff on Mon Nov 30, 15 2:53 am; edited 2 times in total
You'd certainly think so from some other threads - wouldn't you ?
However if I believed a word of it - I'd plead "pre- industrial era processes" - just doing what people all over the world have been doing for millenia
However I'm only goingto be knocking out c 20 kg of CO2 - But I'd love to be able to capture a lot of that and charge up a receiver of some sort to use as "welding gas" - but I'm struggling to think up a way of doing so !
yeast+sugar =co2+water+alcohol and a bit of energy
man + alcohol=co2 +water and a bit of energy
the above isnt quantified and does not cover some of the more complex aspects but unless one uses fossil sugar the net amount of co2 in and out over the relevant timescale is about the same less a bit to make yeast and a bit to make human which evens up later.
re collecting it tis easy with an inverted bell jar(or receiver),dryer and a compressor but for the bother involved it aint worth it unless you are making millions of litres a year like the industrial brewers.(or a cylinder of co2 gets really expensive)
as mentioned above it is sensible to vent the room if making medium sized batches.
- just doing what people all over the world have been doing for millenia 
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