I wish I had read this before I replyed to another message in the group.
I have experienced the slow fermentation issue with Cranberry. I figured
there was SOMETHING about the cranberry that caused the fermentation to be
slow, because I have the problem EVERY time I make it. What tends to happen
with me is that fermentation stops completely and the wine does not ferment
to dryness, but I don't particularly care for dry wines soooo... I get about
10 percent alcohol which is fine for my purposes. I've never kept a bottle
for much longer than a year anyway... :-)
Brad
"Mike McGeough" > wrote in message
...
> Roger McGinnis wrote:
>> After primary fermentation of cranberry wine to a specific gravity of
>> about
>> 0.99, I transferred it to a carboy with an airlock. Quite a bit of the
>> yeast was also transferred. After 2 weeks in the carboy I still see small
>> gas bubbles being generated. Based on the specific gravity when I
>> transfered the wine, I am surprised fermentation is still occuring. Will
>> cranberry wine undergo a secondary fermentation or am I just too
>> impatient?
>>
>>
> Roger,
>
> There's nothing wrong. Cranberries contain Benzoic Acid, a natural
> preservative, and usually don't ferment too fast. Do a Google search on
> "Cranberries benzoic", and you'll get more than you need to know.
>
> I have some blueberry wine which is still _very_ slowly fermenting
> fermenting after all these months since last summer. Blueberries also
> contain the benzoic (benzoate) ion, and are naturally protected against
> fungal decay, aka fermentation. Sometimes it takes many months to ferment
> to dryness, but it eventually gets there. Sometimes a racking
> reinvigorates the yeast, so it seems, and this may speed things up a bit,
> but I'd rather avoid the risk of unnecessary oxygen exposure.
>
> It's not that you're necessarily impatient, but your particular wine
> demands extraordinary patience ;-)
>
> --
> Mike MTM, Cokesbury, NJ, USA
>
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