# Adding More Sugar After Fermentation Has Started



## jabrooks (Jun 26, 2010)

Pitched a batch of Muscat concentrate about 3 hours ago.

Info: SG: 1.100, Temp: 75. Using Lavlin 118. 5 Teaspoons Fermax. 1 heaping tablespoon of pectic enzyme. Purchased concentrate from homewinery.com. 5 gal batch. 

I'm now second guessing if I added enough sugar, I'd like to be somewhere between off-dry to medium sweet, heck maybe even sweet. Either way, is it too late to add more sugar. If not, is there a special way to add the additional sugar in? What are some suggestions of how sweet this wine should be?

Thanks!


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## Tom (Jun 26, 2010)

STOP!.
Adding sugar now will not change it to semi ..It will add more alcohol. @ 1.100 you will have 14+% which is high now.
Let it go dry. The natural sweetness and flavor in this should not have added sugar. Besides this is the wrong time anyway. Look up the profile for this wine


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## jabrooks (Jun 26, 2010)

I bumped it up from somewhere around 8% potential alc, I'm hoping for it to be around 12% actual by the time its drinkable. 

Any suggestions on when to add more pectic, or any ideas for f-pac?

Thanks again.


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## Tom (Jun 26, 2010)

You should not need either


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## jabrooks (Jun 27, 2010)

Thanks Tom.


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## NSwiner (Jun 27, 2010)

jabrooks if it's not sweet enough when it's done frementing look up back sweetening on here .It's explained well but if you have questions then you can ask away and I'm sure someone will help you out .When you get to a sweeteness you like write it down the SG so you know for the next time .


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## jabrooks (Jun 27, 2010)

Darlene,

What are your thoughts on killing the yeast early? I used the yeast that came with the concentrate - see above - but now wish I had used something suited better for sweet whites. Could I kill it just a bit early to keep some of the residual sugar and not have to back sweeten so much?


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## Wade E (Jun 27, 2010)

It is nearly impossible to kill off a yeast without using enough sulfite and or sorbate to ruin your wine forever. Besides that there are only 2 ways of stopping a fermentation in progress and one is risky that it can start back up later in the bottle and explode which has heppened to a few of us and the other option is costly and involves sterile filtration which involves a pricey unit and .45 micron filtersand cold crashing. Cold crashing alone is the method I spoke of which is risky by itself and involves stopping the fermentation by exposing to your wine to temps of around 37* for about a month to not only stop the fermentation but to also make most of the yeast settle out of suspension and then the wine is gently racked off of that immediately and sulfited and sorbated and then watched for at least a month to make sure fermentation doesnt start again. The filterration method involves the same cooling but once its ready to rack you use a very fine filter which will not let any yeast cells make it through thus the wine can not ferment again. Using just sulfite and sorbate will most likely just cause your yeast to stress out while its struggling and cause off flavors and smells and usually cause H2S (suphur) smells in your wine. The filtration system for your wine will cost about $700 or more and is called an Enolmatic filler and you also need the filter and filter canister. The last method is one that too is also risky and is the act of determining what abv you are looking for and using a yeast that will fit that regiman and then feeding more sugar then the yeast can possibly convert into alc and this too is risky as Ive seen yeast rated for 13% go as far as 16% and yeast rated for 18% go as far as 20 1/2%. It can also backfire the opposite way and not come close to reaching that far and end up way to sweet resulting in you having to make another batch that is much drier so that you can blend the 2 together to reduce that extreme sweetness. So as you see, the best and easiest way is to add just enough sugar to get the abv you want letting your wine finish fermenting, sulfite and sorbate (Stabilize), and then back sweeten with a simple syrup, an f-pac, or wine conditioner. Hope that answers all your questions about this.


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## jabrooks (Jun 27, 2010)

Wade, you a wealth of knowledge... thanks. Regarding killing the yeast, I was more curious than anything, but I am glad I don't have to... that sounds like quite a process for such a small batch. Thanks again.


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## mmadmikes1 (Jun 28, 2010)

I have cold crashed and sterilr filtered a wine and still had some bottle bombs. They make a mess and 1/2


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