1st Time Wine Maker (Help)

[pkcook]

WV,


I prefer my country wines sweet or off-dry. As Wade has said, let it finish and if you want it sweeter, first add k-meta and sorbate and then make a simple syrup of 2 parts sugar/1 part water and heat until sugar is disolved. I usually wait a few days before adding the syrup.


Add the syrup to the sweetness you prefer and let it set for a week, a month, or longer.Keep an eye on it to make sure fermentation doesn'trestart. When you are sure it isn't, stir the heck out of it and wait another day or so and bottle.

 

[Wade E]

Or you could use the wine conditioner to sweeten. You may also use
fruit juices to sweeten. What I usually do is buy all natural juice
from a health store, put it in a pot on the stove and reduce it down to
about half and add it. What this does is makes it into a concentrate of
pure fruit juice, no additives. It keeps all the flavor and sweetness
and you dont dilute the alc. to much that way.

 

[wvpcdoc]

Well it’s been sitting for a few months. I just took a reading and its .990. Is that good or bad?<?amespace prefix = o ns = "urnchemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

I gave it a taste today and it taste strong as Whisky! Now that I have my breath back lol I need to know the best way to back sweeten.

 

[Wade E]

.990 is good. That means it has fermented all the way. Have you
added
stabilizer and k-meta yet? You must do this before sweetening or it may
start fermenting all over again and make more alc! What was the
starting SG on this batch. The easiest way to back sweeten is to make
up a batch of syrup consisting of 2 parts sugar to 1 part boiling water
to melt the sugar and add it in very slowly testing frequently and
making sure not to over sweeten because once over sweetened youll have
to add a commercial dry wine to bring it back to where you want it.
When you have reached the point at where you like it, check SG with
hydrometer and remember this # as it will probabaly be very close to
your target # for all your wines when back sweetening in the future.
Another way is to add juice or like I do is to reduce a juice in a pot
on the stove so as to keep all the sweetness but not dilute the wine to
much. The other option is to use a wine condtioner which is an inverted
sugar that is sold in wine making stores such as on this website. Some
people say that itgives it a funny taste though. As far as strong goes,
this will mellow out when sweetened a little and alot with more time!

Edited by: wade

 

[wvpcdoc]

#1 i just added the potassium sorbate to stabilize it. how long should i wait now before i move to the back sweating process? <?amespace prefix = o ns = "urnchemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

#2 As for as the SG Test
11/20 1.050
11/21 1.030
11/24 1.000
11/26 1.000 added the campden tablets.
12/26 .990
1/8 .990
does that answer your question? since this is my 1st batch i am very green lol.

#3 i went off the 3 gallon "full fruit flavor" recipe.
when you say two part sugar 1 part water would i do something like two cups of sugar to one part 1? or would i make it in a bigger batch?

 

[Cracked Cork]

WVPCDOC, good game wasnt it. You can make up as much syrup as you need,
just add 2 cups of sugar to 1 cup of water and boil until it clears,
dont walk away from it though, you gont want caramel! Congradulations
on your first batch of wine. Have you gotten your bottles yet?



Crackedcork in WV

 

[Wade E]

You can add it now. Then let it sit for a week just to make sure she
dont start fermenting again. Very rare but is possible. Good luck.

 

[wvpcdoc]

<?amespace prefix = o ns = "urnchemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />Yep Cracked <?amespace prefix = st1 ns = "urnchemas-microsoft-comfficearttags" /><st1:City wt="on"><st1lace wt="on">Cork</st1lace></st1:City> it was a good game I ordered some a while back plus my family and friends have been saving them for me.

I want to thank everyone for holding my hand through my 1st batch!

I am going to start looking into what to make next. This time of year fresh fruit is hard to get. Have any of you used Oregon Fruit Purees? If so which do your recommend?

wade: Thank you for guiding me through the whole process.

 

[OilnH2O]

Doc, I noticed you hadn't gotten an answer to your question yet. I haven't tried the Oregon Fruit purees, but put that phase in the seach function on this forum, and it will pull up all the previous threads where that product was discussed. It looks like there are 5-6 of them, including this one!


That may help you out!