Are Two Packs Of Wine Yeast, One Too Many?

Customer Service:

One of my wine making kits seem to be slow in starting & after a few days, we added another yeast pkg. to the wine......which finally begin activity. With 2 wine yeast pkg. in the wine, will it effect the taste or final product. Is there anything else we should add in this case to get the wine brewing?

Thank you
Chris D.-----
Hello Chris,

Whether you use one, two or even three packets of wine yeast, it will not have a direct impact on the flavor of the wine. When a single packet starts to ferment, it first goes through what is know as an aerobic stage. This is when the wine yeast begin to multiply themselves into larger numbers.

When making wine from one of these wine making kits, this aerobic phase will typically increase the numbers from the single packet of yeast you added into a colony that is about 150 to 200 times that--up to a certain range or ceiling. That is what makings all that sediment you see in the bottom of your carboys.

If two packets are added, the wine yeast will not make double the volume, but it will make a little more than one packet would, but only slightly more. In either case the yeast will all drop out when they are finished with the fermentation. If the fermentation go correctly, all the yeast will be remove, regardless.

But having said this, you should have only needed one packet of yeast in the first place. The fact that a second packet caused the fermentation to take off would be an indication of one of three things:

First packet of yeast was old. Not very likely, but it does happen.
The water used in making the wine was too cold when it came out of the tap, but eventually warmed up enough to allow a fermentation. This is usually around 24 to 36 hours after being drawn--about the same time you added the second pack of wine yeast. Something we see sometimes in the colder months.
You rehydrated the first pack of yeast in warm water, just as the packet directs, but you did not actually control the temperature of the warm water by taking a temperature reading and/or you did not leave the wine yeast in the warm water for the exact amount of time called for in the directions. In either case, the wine yeast could have been destroyed during this process by water that was just a little too warm or by wine yeast that was left in the warm water longer than instructed.

Number 3 is by far the most common reason we see. Regardless of the reason, its always okay to add a second packet of wine yeast. Just realize that it is not usually a solution to the problem. You also have to be aware of the temperature of the fermentation along with other factors.

One thing you could do when a fermentation is not taking off as planned is to run through the, Top 10 Reason For Fermentation Failure. These 10 reasons cover over 95% of the stuck fermentations we see.

Happy Wine Making,
Customer Service