Stuck fermentation, what do I do?

I have a 200l tank or Syrah that has been at 5 brix for two days. Cap is still rising and I can smell CO2 so I think something is still alive in there. Temp is 84 degrees. Innoculated with D254 and hydrated with nutrients as well as adding nutrients once the fermentation got going. Today is day 10 after inoculation.

I don’t know what the starting brix was. The grapes were delivered during the heat wave and was likely already starting to ferment as the grapes were hot when they arrived.

A 600L tank from the same block has gone dry. Another 200l tank is hovering around 2.5 brix and also seems to be hitting a wall.

Pick a supplier and follow their protocol. For example: http://www.scottlab.com/uploads/documents/technical-documents/1319/Restart%20Stucks%202016.pdf

I would suggest racking the free run and pressing off skins immediately. This ferment is feeling sluggish. Sitting around waiting for this ferment to magically finish to dryness is not gonna happen if been stuck at 5 brix for a few days. Put all wine in a tank and find a restart protocol. Uvaferm 43 is the yeast I have had most success with.

This. I’d press off the skins, if that doesn’t do it then look into a restart.

Tim, have you pressed the 600 liter tank yet? If not, press that and put the free run juice from the stuck smaller tanks on the dry skins. You can also roll the dice and put the dry wine from the 600 liter tank on top of the sweet skins in the smaller tanks. There’s no guarantee it will work, so that 2nd step is a risk. No risk to the first suggestion. I’ve seen it work with Pinot before. Much, much easier than a restart.

Ed Kurtzman, wine yoda.

I did unfortunately :frowning: I pressed the dry tanks yesterday. Planning to press the stuck tank today and keep that wine separate.

I tried to move some must from the dry 600L tank to the stuck one earlier this week. Brix dropped to 4! long way to go still. It sounds like I’m gonna have to try one of the restart protocols, ug.

is there an easy restart protocol, or are they all a PITA?

Another/reliable approach:

  1. Mix yeast hulls (yeast hulls, not opti-red/etc) into the stuck wine. I forget the amt to add, but there are lots of recommendations out there for this. This’ll help bind to ‘bad’ stuff. Don’t add other things, esp nutrients since nutrients in a dry wine will lead to unwanted bacterial/brett growth.

  2. Get a small amt of just crushed juice, 1 or 2 cups is fine (if you don’t have access to freshly pressed grapes, a cup of bottled organic apple juice will work fine). Add some Uvaferm 43 (15-20grams). When it’s beginning to fermenting well (the next day at room temp usually), pour it into a corner of the stuck wine. Pour slowly/carefully to minimize the mixing with the stuck wine. This will allow the yeast to gradually adjust to the ‘problems’ of the stuck wine and ferment that.

ooohh… that sounds like a MUCH easier process. The one suggested by Scott Labs sounds very challenging to execute properly.

A sincere thank you to everyone here on this thread who’ve chimed in to help.

I know I have been scarcely active on the board over the last year or so. Its a luxury to have access to folks like you guys who are willing to share your expertise!

Adding Lysozyme to the stuck wine (as Scott Labs suggests), as you’re adding the yeast hulls is worthwhile (only if your wine is above 3.7pH tho).

And rehydrating the yeast with GoFerm (vitamins only, no nitrogen…that I’m aware of) seems reasonable. Uvaferm 43 is a pretty robust restart yeast, but anything to help it along is a good thing.

What about MLF? Unless MLB was co-inoculated and completed, wouldn’t lysozyme preclude MLF?

It depends on how much you add. According to the Lysozyme folks, if you add a moderate amt the effect is temporary. So you might have to wait a while before inoculating for ML (Lysozyme instructions will tell you how long). Tim’s stuck ferment has been going for a while now, so there’s a reasonable risk that other things are growing, MLB being likely…so seems like a reasonable trade off to get it through.

Just to note again tho, apparently Lysozyme has no effect below 3.7pH.

Good info Eric (and all). Thanks

I’m going to try the dry pomace method today with some stuck Zinfandel. One of my custom crush clients has Zin that went dry, and it’s from the same vineyard as my stuck Zinfandel. The client is pressing today, so I asked him to save me whatever comes out of the press after he’s finished. I’ll add that to the stuck bins.

Stuck is better than when the natural yeasts take off without you:

https://www.facebook.com/dukesfollywines/videos/2013677285586121/

Randy, thanks for posting this. That’s an amazing video. I’m sure there have been many winery injuries because someone hard bunged or clamped down a cap on an active fermentation. I have a friend who cut himself in the face opening a gassy keg once. And two innocent bystander friends of mine got blasted with fermenting saignee Zinfandel last week because someone didn’t know they needed to use a fermentation bung instead of a hard bung. I decided after watching this that I’m going to use the “pole method” to open any keg or stainless drum I’m suspect of. That’s the best thing I’ve learned this vintage.

I added the dry Zin skins to my stuck fermenters yesterday. I’ll report back on how they progress. They seem pretty active.

There is always just getting some straight up glucose too.

Tim, I see you’re in Livermore. I can give you a bucket of good lees if your ferment hasn’t finished by now.

So, made the right connection at work and got lb work done on this, when it stuck

Alchohol 14.4%
RS 3.87 g/100 ml
PH 3.3
TA .65 g/100ml
VA .063 g/100ml

On my last attempt to restart, I added water to lower by 1.5 brix. Didn’t help.

Ed, did the pomace attempt work out?