Wine Information

Question: Would this cultivated yeast work for wine making?

(Posted by: lightofmyarse on 2010-07-27 20:09:27)

Ok here this guy explainss how to cultivate yeast http:/ / www.instructables.com/ answers/ Is- there- a- way- to- cultivating- yeast- at- home- for- ba/ he is talking about baking, but would this also work in wine making and how would i physically reactivate it to start up the fermenting of the wine (yes i am slow) to the point of having everything in the demijohn also would this work with Champagne yeast or Desert/ high alcohol yeast as to get higher alcohol content. also for this i would either be using water + sugar or a bottle of ribina + water. thankyou in advance

Posted by: Thedude27 on 2010-07-27, 21:54:43

Not entirely sure what you are asking or why. I would not use a sourdough starter in your wine, just use the appropriate yeast strain. If you are asking if you can save your yeast for more batches, later on sure. When the wine is fermenting if you use a sterile jar to get some of the wine and some of the white Krassen (foam) from the fermenting batch then seal it (I do this all the time with beer, for wine I usually just re-buy the yeast) I use a mason jar and lid) and put it into the refrigerator it will keep for a few months. With beer you can also harvest from the settled yeast cake but with wine I would expect if you are using bentonite/ etc that would make it kind of a pain to do that way. The best yeast(most healthy) is in the white foam. When you want to use the yeast again you take it out of the fridge and let it warm to room temp, then pour it into a sugar/ water solution(which you have boiled and then let cool) and let it sit till you see some bubbling/ etc then dump it in to your batch to be fermented. You can also freeze yeast (after mixing it with a glycerine soltion) and it will keep for a year or so. You can do this a few times 2-3 before it would be good to start the process over. If you want to make more alcholoic wine just add more sugar so you start with a higher specific gravity. If you are not interetested in only making alchohol you can get something like turbo yeast. making a "starter " like this will help the yeast get going faster but will not make more alcohol. To make more alcholol you need more sugar.

Posted by: CYNTHIA on 2010-07-28, 02:45:32

Yeast when it eats sugar produces alcohol. So all yeasts will/ can make wine/ beer. They have just isolated the yeasts that work better. I have made ribena wine but the preservatives can stop it working earlier.( low alcohol wine) The alcohol content depends on when the yeast stops working. You can re-activate it buy removing some of the liquid and adding a little more yeast/ sugar. When that starts , you can re- introduce to the main ferment.