Sudden fermentation boom?

Mead, wine, beer, and any other form of alcoholic beverages, as well as vinegar.

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Sudden fermentation boom?

Postby Lilium_Blake on Thu Oct 19, 2017 8:32 pm

My ferment is just over 2 weeks old now and all of a sudden it's started producing much much more gas than before.

I'm using balloons rather than an airlock. Up until a couple of days ago, I was getting about 523cm^3 of gas a day.

But it's easily doubled, if not tripled in the last few days.

I tasted it on the 15th and it was extremely vinegary, so I was a bit worried.

I did a bunch of research to find out if I needed to do anything, or if there was anything I *could* do.

A couple of things changed that might have caused the change in gas production:

- I topped it up with water so there's as little space in the vessel as possible
- the weather cooled down by quite a lot and it got much more humid
temps have dropped from ~32°C (90°F) to ~22°C (72°F) and we've had about 130mm (5 inches) of rain.

I've had the vessel draped in a wet t-shirt since it started, to try to keep it cool. But I still think the most likely reason for the sudden change is the weather.

Is this a good sign? Does it mean that it's definitely producing alcohol?
Does vinegar production give off gas? Can vinegar be produced in an anaerobic environment? I have so many questions, I'm sorry. I'm reading everything I can get my hands on but I still can't answer some of the more specific questions :P

I love this process. Even if it turns out badly it's been really fun :)
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Re: Sudden fermentation boom?

Postby khoomeizhi on Sat Oct 21, 2017 4:42 am

Dunno what causes it, but I've observed similar fluctuations. It doesn't always seem to be temp related.
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Re: Sudden fermentation boom?

Postby ADireFloridaMan on Sun Sep 23, 2018 5:46 pm

Vinegar producing acetic bacteria like oxygen 10-18% sugar and 9-12% alcohol for ideal conditions, I use 2 pt wine 1 pt water in my red wine vin. Did you stir after topping it up? I'm wondering if you created a pocket of nice vinegar making space. I'm now realizing how old the post I'm replying to is.

Also, I believe acetic bacteria can achieve anaerobic respiration though this will cause oxidative stress.


How'd it turn out? :D
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