Wine yeast is an essential ingredient of any wine recipe. It is the critical ingredient that does all the work. Wine yeast consumes the sugars in the wine must and converts them into alcohol and CO2 gas. Without the yeast you would have no wine.

There are three different ways to add yeast to wine must. Each method has its own advantages and disadvantages. Here’s a brief overview of each of them:

Add The Yeast Directly To The Wine Must:
This is the most common method. Simply open the packet of wine yeast and sprinkle it directly on top of the wine must. There is no reason to the stir the yeast into the liquid. It will dissolve into the wine must just fine on its own. Sprinkle the yeast and let it be. The obvious advantage to this method is that it takes no effort. The disadvantage is that you do lose some of the yeast’s ability to ferment effectively at the very beginning of fermentation. The result is a delay in the startup of fermentation – usually a matter of 3 or 4 hours.

Re-hydrate The Yeast. Then Add To The Wine Must:
The wine yeast that you get in little packets has been dehydrated. All the moisture has been taken from the cells to make them inactive while in storage. Re-hydrate means to add water back to the yeast. When this process is done before adding the yeast to the wine must, you get a fermentation that takes off more quickly.

It’s no coincidence that this is the method you will find directed on the side of most packets of wine yeast. The producers of these yeast packets would prefer you use this method. The problem is that if you do not follow the directions “exactly” you can easily kill the wine yeast.

Typical wine yeast re-hydration directions will read something like:

“Put the yeast in two ounces of water that is between 104°F. and 109°F. for a period of 15 minutes.”

This method works well if you follow it without wavering in time or temperature. But if you don’t use a thermometer to verify the water’s temperature, or if you leave the wine yeast in the water for longer than directed, you can easily kill most or all of the wine yeast.

Make A Yeast Starter. Then Add To The Wine Must:
This method is often confused with re-hydration, but it’s not the same thing. Re-hydration is getting the wine yeast back to its original state by adding water with it.  But a yeast starter is actually letting the yeast ferment on a small amount of must before adding it to a batch of wine. A yeast starter usually take one or two days to get going before it is add to the entire batch.

Making a yeast starter is fairly straight-foreword. If the wine must is already prepared you can use it as the starter. One pint of wine must in a quart Mason jar and a packet of wine yeast works perfectly for a five gallon batch of wine. If your batch is larger, multiply the starter’s size proportionately.  Add a 1/4 teaspoon of yeast nutrient along with the yeast packet and cover it with a plastic wrap secured with a rubber band. Prick a pinhole in the plastic wrap to allow the gasses to escape.

Regardless of the starter size or how it was made, you want the wine yeast to maximize its level of activity before adding it to the wine must. You will see the yeast starter begin to foam up. I usually tell people to pitch the starter into the wine must once you see this foaming start to slow down. In other words, once the foaming has peaked. This is usually 12 to 18 hours after starting.

When you make the yeast starter you can sprinkle the packet of yeast direction into it, but the purist will re-hydrate the wine yeast in water, first, before doing so.

The advantage with the method of adding yeast to a wine must is that you will get the quickest and most thorough fermentation. Your yeast will also be under little stress, so the chance of the yeast producing any off-flavors is very minimal. The disadvantage is that it is more work, and you do need to plan ahead since the starter needs a day or two to get going.

How you decide to add yeast to your wine must is entirely up to you. Any of these methods will work. Just consider the advantages and disadvantages of each one, and go with what works best for you.
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I have made this wine several times — has always turned out very well. However, this time (same recipe), the wine’s not clearing. I have changed the carboy 3 times since early November, still not clearing. (Did the flashlight test). The temperature in the room stays perfect for it — just don’t understand it… It smells wonderful! Any advice, would be greatly appreciated!

Name: Laura
State: MN
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Hello Laura,

Sorry you’re having such a stubborn time with a cloudy wine, but don’t give up on it just yet. Having a cloudy wine is usually not a catastrophic event, but more like to be just an annoyance with a solution.

But before we can solve the problem we have to identify the problem. The cloudiness is only a symptom. We need to know why the wine is still cloudy? Until we have the answer to that we don’t know what action to take.

1. Your wine may still be fermenting.
   The first thing to look at is the specific gravity of the wine. This will tell us how much sugar is still left in the wine, if any. This is easily checked with a wine hydrometer. If the specific gravity indicates that there is still sugar in the wine, then the probable reason you have a cloudy wine is because your wine is still fermenting very slowly, but enough to keep things stirred up.It is important to note that the slightest amount of fermentation can cause a lot of cloudiness in a wine, so do not rule this reason out just because you have not seen any bubbles come out of the air-lock. If the hydrometer indicates that the fermentation has not completed, then this is most likely the reason you have a cloudy wine. The only way to solve this problem is to get the fermentation to complete… to make sure the wine yeast are happy and provided with the environment needed to finish the job. One article that you might want to take a look at is, “The Top 10 Reasons For Fermentation Failure“. You can go over these reasons and see if any of them ring true to your situation.
   

2. Your wine may have a pectin haze.
   This could be particularly true if your wine recipe does not call for a pectic enzyme to break down the pectin cells in the fruit. While the fermentation activity itself will quite often break down the pectin, there are many times it will not. This is why it is usually advisable to add pectic enzyme to any fruit wine recipe — whether it calls for it or not. There is no downside to doing so.One way to test for a pectin haze is to take a 4 ounce sample of the wine in question and add ¼ teaspoon of pectic enzyme to it. Allow the mixture to sit for a few hours or until  the wine has become clear. If the wine does not clear then you do not have a pectin haze. If the wine does clear, then pectin haze is why you have a cloudy wine.The only thing you can do to the wine at this point would be to add a double-dose of pectic enzyme to the entire batch of wine (use the dosage listed on the container it came in). Then give it several weeks time, if not months, to clear. Patience is crucial in the particular instance.

3. Tannin falling out of the wine.
   Tannin is the bitter zest found mostly in the skin of a fruit. Any wine can only hold so much tannin before it will start to release it as a precipitate. One way to test for this is to heat a pint sample of the wine in a sauce pan and see if it clears. If it does then tannin is the issue. You can find more information on our website on the subject. You might want to look over the article: “Maintaining Temperature Stability In Your Wines“.

4. Your wine has a bacterial infection.
   If you added sulfites such as Campden tablets or sodium metabisulfite before and after the fermentation, this is not likely to be your problem. But if you didn’t, then there is a likelihood that a bacterial infection of sorts is the reason why you have a cloudy wine.You mentioned that the wine smelled great, so I doubt that this is your problem. Wines with this type of fault will smell bad before they taste bad. A simple way to test for this is to smell the wine. If you notice a fingernail polish type smell or an odor of sauerkraut, then this is likely to be what’s going on.A bacterial infection has taken over the wine.Of all the the reasons for having a cloudy wine, this is the worst one. An uncontrolled bacterial infection means the wine is un-salvageable and that you should cut your losses and dispose of the wine. Hopefully, this is not the case.

Another blog post that may help you with your cloudy wine is “Clearing A Cloudy Wine…“. This is about another fellow winemaker with similar problems to what your are describing.

Hope this information helped you out. Best wishes and happy wine making,
Ed Kraus
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

My hydrometer says my wine has no, what can I do? …and what did I do wrong? It’s a cab, I let it ferment and it’s clear but when I checked the alcohol level it said 0%, what can I do?

Thanks Mike A.
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Hello Mike,

We get your question a lot: My wine is done fermenting, but the hydrometer is reading no alcohol content. What happened?

Well, I’ve got some great news. It is extremely likely that there is not a problem with the wine. It fermented just fine, and it does have plenty of alcohol in it.

It is much more likely that you are interpreting the hydrometer readings incorrectly. It happens all the time and stems from the fact that the wine hydrometer is a backwards instrument when it comes to reading alcohol content. All that’s needed is a little clarification, and I think you’ll see what I mean.

To determine the alcohol content of any wine you must take more than just one reading with the hydrometer. You must take two readings and compare them – one before the fermentation begins and another one after. For example, a typical beginning reading on the wine hydrometer’s alcohol scale would be 13%. The typical ending reading might be 0%. If this were the case, the wine would have 13% alcohol.

It is the beginning reading minus the ending reading. Or, another way to look at it: it is the distance that the fermentation travels along the alcohol scale, not its current reading.

Another point is that the scale is actually not call an alcohol scale. It is called a Potential Alcohol scale. At any given time this scale can tell you how much alcohol can be made with the sugars that are still currently available in the wine must. What it cannot tell you is how much alcohol is in the wine with just that one reading.

In your case, the potential alcohol scale is reading close 0% alcohol content because there is no sugar left to make more alcohol. The sugar has already been consumed by the wine yeast and fermented into alcohol.

If you would liked to read more about why your wine hydrometer is reading no alcohol content, the link will take you to some more detailed information about this: Hydrometer Scales And What They Mean.

Happy Wine Making,
Ed Kraus
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

I started a batch of wine. When I added my yeast it did not get foamy but you could hear it working and see it bubbling. I’m wondering what could cause this or if you think there might be a problem with it.

Thanks
Rick, Holly Springs, MS
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Hello Rick,

The fact that there is no foaming during the fermentation could be an indication that you have an issue. It never hurts to look over the Top 10 Reasons For Fermentation Failure and see if any of the reasons apply to your situation. These 10 reasons cover well over 95% of this issues we come across.

But it is much, much more likely that you do not have anything to worry about. The amount of foam does vary from one fermentation to the next, regardless of the amount of activity that is actually going on through the air-lock. In all likelihood you are simply being fooled by the foam – or lack of it.

There are several factors that can cause this variation in foaming during the fermentation. I’ll quickly go over the two big ones:

• The Fruit You Are Using: Proteins and other gelatinous materials that are in the fruit are the main components that cause a fermentation to foam. You have strawberries and peaches at the high end of the protein spectrum and apples and cranberries at the low end. This mean you can expect the foaming to vary based on the fruit you are fermenting.

• The Wine Yeast You Are Using: Some wine yeast can create a bit of foam. Red Star’s ‘Premier Classique’ is one of them. Then there are wine yeast that don’t foam much at all. Red Star’s ‘Cote des Blancs’ would be and example of this. These wine yeast have been bred to produce very little foam so as to not cause clean-up problems in a winery situation.

To really know how things are going with your wine’s fermentation you really should not depend on the amount of foam you see. As you can start to see, it really doesn’t mean that much. You need to rely on a wine hydrometer. By taking hydrometer readings during the wine’s fermentation, you can track how fast or how slow your wine is fermenting.

If you take a couple of hydrometer readings a couple of days apart and there is no change, then you know your wine is not fermenting. If the hydrometer readings are different, then you know you have progress and you don’t need to be concerned.

Just because there is no foaming during the fermentation doesn’t mean you have a problem. It is the wine hydrometer that has the final say as to what’s going on, so take your hydrometer readings, and don’t be fooled-by-the-foam.

Happy Wine Making,
Ed Kraus
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

Home wine making holds a lot of mystery for some, particularly if they’ve never made wine. And for those who have, there are still some dark, mysterious corners with some unanswered questions.

With this in mind I’ve put together seven random wine making facts that many home winemakers still don’t know.

Look them over and see how many of them you know and how many of them are shinny, new ‘pearls of wisdom’ for you?

1. Five 750ml wine bottles equals 1 US gallons. They don’t exactly equal a gallon. More like .99 gallons… just 1.2 ounces shy, but close enough for figuring out how many bottles you’re going to need. If you have 10 gallons of wine, you’re going to need 50 bottles.

2. One pound of cane sugar will raise the potential alcohol of 5 gallons of wine must by 1%. This is a real handy wine making fact. If you are getting ready to ferment 5 gallons of wine must, and it has a potential alcohol of 9%, just add 3 pounds of cane sugar to get it to 12%. Again, this is not exact but very, very close.

3. 2 cups of cane sugar equals 1 pound. If you don’t have a scale you can weigh your cane sugar by the cup. This is a little trick that came from cooking class, but is certainly helpful when making wine. It also ties in well with wine making fact #2.

4. All wines contain sulfites, whether you add it or not. This is because sulfites are a minor byproduct of the fermentation. A normal wine fermentation will produce sulfites on the order of 10 to 15 PPM (parts-per-million). When we add sulfites as a home winemaker or as a winery, we are shooting for about 45 to 75 PPM

5. Home wine making was illegal until 1979. When prohibition was repealed in 1933 all was still not right in the world. It was still illegal to make your own wine or beer at home. It wasn’t until 45 years later, in 1978, when California Senator, Alan Cranston introduced a bill that was passed and later signed by President Jimmy Carter in 1979, that it was federally legal for U.S. citizens to make there own wine at home.

6. About half the sugar in a wine must is turned to CO2 gas, the other half to alcohol by weight. That is to say that if you add a pound of sugar to a wine must and it ferments completely, you will have added 1/2 pound of alcohol to the resulting wine. The other half floats away as CO2 gas. This division can vary a little depending on the wine yeast and fermenting conditions, etc. but almost always between 47% and 53%.

7. Use Honey In Place Of Sugar: This is a great wine making fact if you’re into a little experimentation, you can try using different honeys in place of any sugar called for in a wine recipe. Once the sweetness of the honey is fermented away, you are left with its herbal qualities. For every pound of sugar called for in a wine recipe, you will want to use 1-1/4 pound of honey in its place.

Did you know some of these wine making facts. If you didn’t, well now you do. Do you have a random wine making fact you’d like to share with us. Just leave it as a comment below, and we’ll see how many everyone can come up with.
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

A wine hydrometer plays many different roles in home wine making. It can track a fermentation’s progress. It can tell you if your fermentation has completed and not just stuck…  but one of its more interesting uses is controlling your wine’s alcohol level.

By using the wine hydrometer to help you adjust your beginning reading – before fermentation – you can control how much alcohol your wine will have when the fermentation has completed.

One of the scales you will find on a wine hydrometer is the potential alcohol scale. This hydrometer scale is only useful before the fermentation starts. What it is telling you is how much potential for alcohol your juice currently possesses.

As you add more sugar to the wine must the reading on the potential alcohol scale will rise. What this means is as the sugar rises you have a potential for more alcohol. The reason it is potential is because it hasn’t happened yet, and the alcohol is dependent on the fermentation fermenting all the sugars in the wine must.

As an example, if you have a beginning reading on the potential alcohol scale of 11% this means that your wine will have 11% alcohol when the fermentation is finished – provided the fermentation was allow to run its full course. Basically, the wine making hydrometer is telling you how much alcohol that sugar can make.

As another example, if your wine hydrometer had a starting reading of 13% potential alcohol and after the fermentation the reading was 1%, that means your wine currently has 12% alcohol.

If you want the fermentation to potentially make more alcohol, just add more sugar to the wine must until the potential alcohol scale on the hydrometer reads the alcohol level you want the wine to end up with.

As a final note, we do not recommend shooting for alcohol levels higher than 14%. If more sugar is added than the wine yeast can handle you may end up with an extremely sweet wine or, worse yet, a stuck fermentation.

So, while the wine hydrometer has many functions, one of its most useful is it allows the home winemaker to control the level of alcohol their finished wine will have. If you are still unsure, we have more information about using a wine making hydrometer and it’s functions in the wine making process on our website.

Happy Wine Making