Day 5 - My 5 day cruise has been extended due to weather

It's Friday, I'm excited, and can't wait to rack my wine. I spoke to my friend Fire/Paramedic Marshal, who's accomplished in beer making, and asked him about the sanitizing power of campden tablets. He said he always uses star san for sanitizing his gear when making beer. Concerned looms around campden tablets and their sanitizing power grows. I run over to oshea's during lunch to get to the bottom of this enigma. Jeff told me that Star San is used by professional beer makers to sanitize their stuff but the campden tablets will work fine for wine making; and is what wineries use (sulfur). I buy a small bottle of lo-star sanitizer just in case. Maybe I'll used it to sanitize my bottles.

I get home from work and first thing's first, I need to take a hydrometer reading. I create a new batch of sanitized water with the campden tablets (1 tablet to 1 gal of warm water), let my hydrometer soak for a few mins and wash my hands. I crack the lid (picture below) and drop the hydrometer in. And what do you know, the wine is no where near being between 1.020 and 1. The hydrometer reads 1.050. You have got to be kidding me! I sanitize the hydrometer liquid holder and take a sample of wine. Dropped in the hydrometer and it reads 1.044. WTF. I can hear the wine gods laughing at me right now.

The only thing I can come up with is that the temperature of the wine is on the lower side of the fermentation temp range. The instructions say to keep the PF's(Primary Fermenter) temperature between 68 and 77 degrees F. I've set my heater to 71 and the PF has been a consistent 70.9 to 72 degrees. As for the hydrometer mini reading, It is possible the side of the hydrometer is touching the side of the container skewing the readings a bit. Regardless, the wine isn't ready for the stage 2. The instructions specifically state that if in doubt, wait a day or 2. I seal up the container, put clean sanitizing liquid in the airlock and tell the wine, I like you, your cool but hurry up.

The Good News:
I poured a little bit of the mini hydro's wine into a cup and tested the wine. You know what, it tasted pretty good. My wife said it tastes like carbonated grape cider. Neighbor Michelle says I should bottle it as is. Michelle, thank you no. I ain't bottling no girly wine on my first time around. This means that A) the wine has not been infected (thank you Jeff and campden tablets) and B) if this is any indication of the wine, it should turn out pretty darn good.
 


 Here 's my ghetto splatter protecting airlock bag

 Opening of the PF on day 5.

The hydrometer reading - 1.050, COME ON!

 Here is the hydro reading in its holder - 1.044, Wine gods, this isn't funny.