Beer/Wine Blog

                                                                The Why Behind Fermentation Failure 

.           Dry yeast is almost impossible to kill but once you add water and it rehydrates then it is very easy to kill. But just because your liquid is not fermentation that does not mean you have killed it. There are a lot of reasons why and today we are going to cover a few of them. 

            Other than the main reasons being temperature another important reasons is how much sugar is used. Sugar is needed to help the yeast produce the alcohol but if you add to much sugar it can do the exact opposite and cause the yeast to stop the fermentation of your product. It is recommended to check the sugar levels already in your juice before adding more to it. This will help prevent adding to much sugar and causing fermentation issues. 

            Something else that can cause fermentation failure is by adding yeast to soon after Sodium Bisulfite or Campden Tablets. Both Sodium Bisulfite and Campden Tablets are added to kill bacteria and wild yeast. You want to wait at least 24 hours after adding the Sodium Bisulfite or Campden Tablets otherwise they can kill your yeast and cause it not to ferment. 

            When making wine you want to avoid using distilled water due to there are minerals in the water that is needed to help aid the wine making process. If you have good tap water (typically if you can drink it) it is recommended to use that otherwise if your using bottled water you want to stick to spring water, mineral water, or other drinking water that has not been distilled

For more tips check out our yeast troubleshooting page.