Risks to late fermentation water additions

Any risks to sticking the fermentation with a late fermentation water addition, say around 10 brix.

What was your starting brix?

To your question: No.

What is your reason for adding water at this stage?

Better at 10 brix than at -1.8 brix. As long as you had a good starting brix to go on, you should be fine.

Depending on how large of an add it is it can raise pH and lower yan. I think most folks in the water add every vintage to every lot camp also pull the same amount of juice (or more) out to keep the skin to juice ratio the same (or greater).

I was worried about the alcohol level. I used D254 and the starting brix was 27.5 by refractometer. The yeast should be ok at those levels, but what I was worried about seems to be coming true. The temp has dropped from a peak of 85 to 79 and the brix have been at 3.5 for two days now.

Should I pitch a high alcohol tolerance yeast now?

In my limited experience, I’ve pitched D254 at higher brix levels than that with no problem. I wouldn’t be so quick to assume it’s an alcohol issue.

What’s the pH and TA?

So, to review…

27.5 Brix
No water add?
3.5 is measured reading on hydrometer?

Did you test for soak up, and if so, how long did it soak?
Given that brix reading, I’d assume ongoing soak up, possibly for several days.

If those are true, have you tested for alc.%?
Does anyone you know have an eboliometer, so you can test it now?

If all of the above are correct, you probably have over 6% sugar left.

Have considered adding some alc. and making a fortified wine?

I think D254 should get you there. Lost of folks using that one in custom crush facilities to finish all kinds of big reds with that bad boy.

Hydrometers are perfect but will give you a general idea. If you could have glu/fru done that would be a better measurement of the residual sugar in the ferment.

79 is still pretty warm and if your post peak temps they should be falling slowly. Is the cap still staying firm? If it was getting mushy fast then a stuck/sliggish ferment you may be heading towards.

I don’t think eboliometers work well on wine with over 1-2% RS. I have one and love it for home testing of commercial wine and have had many PN’s with enough RS to throw the number off after sending a sample to ETS for verification. Though you can dilute a sample with distilled water and get something to work off. Testing for alcohol, glu/fru, and/or va should be high on the priority list to see whats happening. If its smelling a little funky some yeast hulls could never hurt either.

What did you decide to do, and how did it go?

I was thinking the same thing. I dont have any more ferments till next year(except home beer) so im looking forward to good news on yours.

This. Using the refractometer once fermentation starts will be inaccurate. 3.5 Brix on a refractometer is probably <0 in reality.

Whatcha making, a pinot?

Tim, just saw your post from 10/16. Did you add more yeast? 27.5 would give you at least 15.5%, even in this low conversion year. If you’re still around 3.5 brix (hydrometer?), it’s almost an ideal time for a traditional restart. The higher the brix, the more likely the restart will work.

Acidify the water addition so as not to drive up the pH