What does it mean when you ferment wine and it starts hissing?

Question

I used baking yeast

Answer 1

see if the cat fell in

Answer 2

I don't think you have a problem unless you've put it in a container the CO2 can't escape from. Baking yeast and brewers yeast are so similar you won't notice much of a difference. You may have the temperature of the must too high and fermentation could be going too fast.

I'd try getting the temperature down first by getting your fermentation vessel in a cooler place.

You don't say what you're making wine from, but unless you're trying for very high quality, and using an expensive grape extract, you should be OK.

You can make wine from anything as long as you keep the sugar specific gravity at the recommended levels. You can even use dandelion flowers. I haven't tried it but it's an old recipe that was common in the first part of the twentieth century.

Answer 3

You get hissing when more carbon dioxide is produced than the apparatus is designed to handle. You can't stop it and you wrecked the wine when you added the bakers' yeast. Let it go to completion. You might like the result. Or not.

Yes, you can make blueberry wine. Also potato wine, turnip wine, coffee wine, honey wine, dandelion wine .... Just don't use bakers' yeast next time. Homebrew shops (local or online) and wineries can sell you packets of Montrachet, sherry, or champagne yeasts. They run a dollar-something for the dry yeast. I'd suggest Montrachet.

Pick up a book by CJJ Berry. He wrote a few in winemaking for beginners and has both instructions and recipes. His lemon wine is especially good, IMHO.

Answer 4

you have an air leak in the bottle, the wine will get infected and taste rank :)

Answer 5

More carbon dioxide is building up in it than it can contain, so it is being released (yeast gives off carbon dioxide and alcohol as by-products as it grows). You shouldn't have used baker's yeast instead of brewer's yeast, they are two different things. Baker's yeast will grow much faster, for one, and produce more carbon dioxide than alcohol, for another.