The Best Way to Stop a Fermentation. Make Better Wine! 

Thanks John!

Thanks Robbi! Happy Holidays to you too!

That is probably right. Malolactic fermentation seems to start without any issue on the wines you don't want it in. I usually sulfite my crisp whites as soon as I am sure primary fermentation is complete. For most, that is when it is dry after about three weeks at cool fermentation temps. If you are cold crashing the fermentation it is especially important though. If you were to let it get crystal clear and add potassium sorbate without adequate sulfite, you risk MLF starting after sorbating. In the presence of potassium sorbate, malolactic bacteria will create a geranium smell which is not what you want. I probably should have mentioned that in this video but it's hard to cover every scenario! Lol.

@@TheHomeWinemakingChannel hello! DX I am pretty new to your channel and winemaking, sod you recommend any kind of book or pdf file available on the internet or website where I can learn more about winemaking? if so that would help a lot.

Thanks! If you slow it down before fully chilling it, you have a shot but the number is not that important to me. I have an idea of where I want the wine to go and I'll do my best to get it there. I can always make fine adjustments later if necessary. I find the biggest issue is stalling too soon. You can always add a little sugar back to dial it in, but it is much harder to go the other way.

How much did he add? (let's say per gallon)

@@muckville9195 I put 1/2 cups to 2/3 cups of Plain Smirnoff per gallon Plain Smiroff of 40%

Fortified wine.. been a classic in Appalachia’s for ever

Haha thank you! Yes the holidays hits us hard in the wine racks. We just repurposed two big old wine racks from a ski resort in the room where I keep the carboys so we have about 400 bottles more capacity over there. I've been waiting to bottle a lot because of lack of storage but we should be good now! Bottled 84 bottles tonight and a lot more to go.

Thanks! The ABV is less important than trying to leave the appropriate amount of residual sugar for the wine. Normally for a semi sweet to sweet wine, I am trying to stall around 1.010 to 1.020 on the hydrometer. If the wine is a little more acidic you could aim to leave a little more sugar. If less, you can leave less. If the wine starts with a lot of sugar I'd definitely stall it. If not you may choose to chaptalize (add sugar before fermentation), then cold crash and stall it, or do the easier thing and just let it go dry and back sweeten it.

@@TheHomeWinemakingChannel absolutely. Thanks Rick.

Thank you! I have a wild fermentation video from this Halloween if you go back a couple months.

The fastest it will start to clear up is usually about 1.5 months after you stall it but usually closer to two or three. If it is saturated with CO2 it will clear up a lot slower. You can degas it a bit if you want to speed things up or just wait it out which is usually what I do.

You don't need to stop a fermentation. This technique is for when you DO want to leave residual sugar in the wine rather than ferment it until dry. You can back sweeten which is the easy thing to do, or you can intentionally stall the fermentation which is much trickier but can preserve some fruity flavors that otherwise would be metabolized by the yeast.

I use aquamark #9 corks mostly. They will allow wine to age many many years without cork issues. They are natural corks with the pores packed with cork dust so the only thing I'll mention is that once in a while you can get a couple little chunks of cork dust in the first glass you pour. Nomacorks are good if you want to do synthetic. Stay away from the super cheap composite corks unless you plan to drink the wine within a year or two. They won't make it much beyond two years.

As long as your keeping it below temp the yeast will flocculate to the bottom of the vessel

Oh I see now that's the potassium metabisulphite.. so what would be the second best?

just pasteurize it, that stops fermentation as well@@lukmit3729

Yes, it is not too much of a concern since it is just one cooling cycle, so you will only suck a bubble or two through.

If it is still bubbling, keep swirling it up and keep it from getting below about 70F. If it has stopped bubbling and is tart then you could add a little more sugar and try to restart the fermentation. I wouldn't recommend more than about 11% ABV on a lemon wine. The one that hasn't started may start if you warm it up to about 80F and keep it there. Make sure there are no preservatives in your lemon juice (sorbate or benzoates). Those will make the fermentation a lot more challenging.

The process of stopping the fermentation will be the same for mead. Much of the B-Roll in this video was a mead that went on to be the base of a Pyment.

Yes, they will use jacketed fermentation tanks that have food grade coolant running through the jacket around the tank and a larger chiller system. They can back sweeten which is common outside of California, but in California they are usually shutting down the fermentation.

Both yeast and bentonite carry a negative charge and won't be attracted to one another. To specifically drop yeast out more quickly you will want to use a positively charged fining agent like sparkolloid or casein.

I forgot to thanks for your great videos 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

Great comment did you ever find clarification on it ?

When using potassium sorbate (sorbic acid), you will always sulfite or test to assure you have adequate free SO2 to prevent microbial activity. If the bacteria can't metabolize the sorbic acid, it should not create the geranium taint. I have never had an issue with it. Most wines you will be sweetening will also be relatively low pH (white wines, fruit wines) which is also a difficult environment for MLF to occur without a lot of encouragement. If you want to know if it has partially occurred you can do a paper chromatography test to look for the presence of lactic acid. Most of the bigger winemaking shops will have them.

You really need a spare fridge or a cold room in your house. I have a canning cellar under my back porch that will keep wine at about 40 through the winter. A winery will usually have a climate controlled room or more often, jacketed tanks with a glycol chiller to pump food grade coolant through the jacket.

0.997 means it's completely dry and not fermenting anymore..... i made this mistake once when my refractometer was reading wrong i used a heat pad to bring it up to temp but oh boy heating it will only allow fusel alcohols to form basically depending on your original gravity you have basically brewed rocket fuel like i did with a strawberry rhubarb wine the film is like tannins and other sediment which has dropped out, or it has oxidised... have you tasted it ?

@@bobmarley2140 I ended up calling it finished even though it was still producing CO2 bubbles. I put it in a carboy and stuck it in a cooler place. Since then the gravity has continued to drop and now sits at 0.994, and is still producing a little gas. The wine tastes fine, but it's not clearing very well.

​@@jimdent351 apologies depending on how your tool was calibrated at 0.994 i'd say yeah call it finished mine also dropped to 0.995 which is when i thought bloody hell its's like liquor, it'll continue to bubble as freshly brewed wine off gasses the trapped c02 and as for the clearing if it's yeast causing the haze and you want no chemicals involved try cold crashing in a really cold garage or your fridge for a day or two if it's pectin and other stuff you could go down the Egg white route but again if the haze doesn't bother you then just drink it !

@@bobmarley2140 Thanks for your response. Have you tried Bentonite clay for pectin haze. I really don't want to use the egg white route. Something about putting an easily perishable substance like egg is a turnoff for me. Thanks.

@@jimdent351 Me neither sounds risky and no sorry i haven't tried it i am fairly new to this and i tend to make natural style wines i generally don't filter or use anything to clear it up, IF you are CERTAIN it is pectin haze just throw in some pectic enzyme and wait it will do the trick albeit slowly because fining and filtering won't do much to remove the pectin

It will slow down as the temperature drops and eventually stop once it reaches a level that it is no longer capable of fermenting. Most will stall out in the high 40F range but some of the cold tolerant white wine strains can keep making a few bubbles a little lower.

Under 10C degrees is fine In a fridge its about 5C degrees its even better Unfortunately there are cold resistant yeast in the must so cooling alone wont stop the fermentation only slow it down the combination of cooling and so2 can stop the fermentation at desired alcohol or sweetness level. I advise that you dont stop fermentation under 12% alcohol since alcohol is important for keeping your wine stable and crucial for long shelf life After cooling and so2 addition you should rack and coarse filter your wine in about 2 days so that you stop refermentation from happening. I advise that you only stop fermentation if your must is very sweet like above 24 BRIX so in the end you will have enough alcohol and sweetness in your wine also If you want a sweet wine you should just do like almost all wineries do they just dont advertise it. Let the wine go through fermentation completely then add concentrated must to your dry wine. This way you can make very stable wines without the risk of refermentation. You should note that your wine will only be stable if your ph is under 3,5 you have at least 12 alcohol. You can use commercial yeast to improve stability in smaller batches or add yeast to high volumes of must if you have a cooling system and can keep your temperature at bay When you are preparing for bottling you add the concentrated must, potassium sulfate and set the so2 at the desired level if its not already set. If your wine havent gone through cold stabilization u add metatartaric acid. This way you can prevent tartar buildup for about 6 month to a year When bottling always use a membrane which was designed to use in the wine industry. (0,45micron is most commonly used) if you want your wine to be crystal clear and stay that way buy a winery membrane you can find cheap ones and they may have the same pore size but their retentive ability is very different. You want your wine to be rid of all spolige yeast and bacteria you can buy everything in your local wine shop oncluding the concentrated must hope this helps best whishes

Also you should add these additives only before bottling to an already clear wine Furthermore you dont add potassium sorbatr to a fermenting must because it not only will not stop the fermentation it will ferment along with the must ruining the whole batch also i forgot to mention in order to have a stable wine you need to get rid of the proteins as well using bentonite

If you add a big dose of SO2 while the fermentation is roaring along and the yeast population is high, you add a lot of unnecessary stress to the yeast which increases the likelihood of Hydrogen Sulfide (rotten egg smell). Yeast are naturally very reductive so you aren't particularly worried about oxidation during that week that they are settling. Even just by chilling it you risk H2S to some extent which is why I normally like to use a low or no H2S yeast strain when intentionally stalling like this.

You can heat the wine to pasteurize it, but you will also be "cooking" the wine, which can wipe out your fresh fruit character. A "cooked" wine is considered a major wine flaw. There are some wines that are intentionally heated though. In Madiera, this is common, which is why the wine flaw is often described as "maderized". Some Kosher wine, known as mevushal are also heated.

@@TheHomeWinemakingChannel Ah, ok, thanks for the additional info bro

Choassup

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