Hmm, maybe use the same amount of yeast as you did first time around with some yeast nutrients maybe. You want to make your wine liveable for the yeast, and that nutrients would help.
Yeast nutrients can brought online, here’s one, although I personally haven’t used Fermax have a look around and see what suits your set up/budget.
Also I’ve only made wine in a (albeit small) commercial set up. The things I’ve mentioned are basics, and I’m no expert on at home situations.
Something like this would last you for forever.
As far as things you have around the house lots of people use things like raisins, bread, and bakers yeast boiled for a few minutes instead. I even use a crushed up multivitamin to help boost my rum washes. My only concern would be the flavor additions since you aren't planning on distilling it and sugar washes don't have much flavor on their own.
I purchased this stuff. I didn't know too much about nutrients (I'm just beginning to learn all about fermenting) so I just went with the one that had the best reviews. I read a bunch of the amazon reviews and it seemed good.
I'll be using EC-1118 just like the guy in the thread you linked. I currently have a batch fermenting (for about a week now) in a gallon of strawberry juice that I added 2 cups of sugar and 1 teaspoon of nutrients to. I plan to do the following:
Use 1 campden tablet to get rid of chloramines in the water then mix 12lbs of sugar, 2 tablespoons of nutrients, and pour 1 cup of the fermenting strawberry juice in there for the yeast. I then plan to use ph strips and citric acid to get the entire 5 gallons down to a ph of 4.0'ish.
I figured I'd go with EC-1118 since I also planned to use the yeast in fruit juices I wanted to drink straight up. I heard it was one of the better yeasts for that purpose. Since it also can get up to high'ish ABV, it seemed like a good yeast for both my purposes.
I'm curious to taste the sugar wash once it's done too. I heard some bad stuff about how washes taste, but I'm assuming mine will be more like a "sugar wine"? If it doesn't taste too bad, I might run batches of it just to drink straight up with flavorings (like coolaid powder, ice tea powder, etc).
Would love to hear any thoughts or suggestions you may have? Always nice to get advice from someone experienced.
Fermax Yeast Nutrient is what I have on hand...will that work? Otherwise I can try to get the other stuff asap.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0064H0MWY/ref=od_aui_detailpages01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
And no worries about being lazy on figures. I'm honestly more than appreciative you took the time to comment this much already.
Fermax Yeast Nutrient, 1lb https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0064H0MWY/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_T8hVxbK1Y27SE
Feeds the yeast, keeps it from getting hungry and making sulfates (rhino farts). 3 TBS in my 5 gallon cider went over great.
As for the time, it depends on your yeast. I use red star Cote de blanc and before the two month mark it's super hazy and yeasty. Getting it to fully clarify and age out all the yeast flavors can take a full six months from what I understand, but I'm simply not that patient.
I age in the carboy then bottle. Each time I've jumped the gun I've ended up with a huge sediment in the bottom of my bottles. Gross
from the label it sounds like it's a 50/50 mix of DAP and Urea (not ideal), but assuming it has no fillers it's probably 100% YAN, so however many milligrams a teaspoon weighs is how much YAN you're adding per gallon. Guessing a teaspoon comes out to around a gram or so since there's about 4L in a gallon. If you've already added a teaspoon at the beginning of fermentation you're probably fine, they probably got really excited from the DAP and got a little hot and started cranking out esters like ethyl acetate. as long as the ferment doesn't stall it should be ok.
in the future i would avoid using any nutrient that contains urea, didn't know they actually still made them. this stuff sounds pretty similar to fermaid k and is only $13/lb
https://www.amazon.com/BSG-849731002187-Fermax-Yeast-Nutrient/dp/B0064H0MWY/
for the "1.0-1.5tsp/gal" i would split that up to 0.75tsp/gal in your yeast slurry at pitching with maybe some goferm if you're feeling fancy (https://www.amazon.com/Go-Ferm-Nutrient-1-oz/dp/B06XPMLJ9W/) and then do the other 0.75tsp/gal like 3 days in or so. that will keep them happy without them going apeshit and making weird smells
Well if you're using the same yeast nutrient I use you should have pitched about 2.5 tbs. My instructions said 1-1.5 teaspoons per gallon, and you started out with 3 teaspoons in five gallons (1.5 tsp up front, 1.5 tsp later, right?), so by my math you're still significantly lacking nutrients.
If you add more later do it slow and careful. Last time I tried to pitch additional nutrients was five days into the ferment and had a dissapointing crop of farts going on. I realized I'd done exactly what you did, only pitched 1.5 tsp of nutrients, popped the top and frantically dumped in an additional tablespoon. GUSH!