Added too much water, can I save this?

[Dperry93]

Hi Friends, this is my first batch of wine. I am making the Orchard Breezin kit from RJ's Craft Winemaking. Last night I wondered if I needed to put more water in my bucket because I bought 6 gallons of drinking water. I totally did not take the juice bag into account. So I poured in the whole extra gallon of water. Horrible, late night decision! Today is day 2. There is foam on the top and the SG is 1.020. Should I take some liquid out? Should I add sugar? The liquid is close to the top and I'm afraid it will overflow. I don't have an extra bucket, only the carboy. Help!

 

[sour_grapes]

Welcome to WMT!

None of your options is great at this point. Personally, I would just let it ride. If you are truly afraid of an overflow, you could put a tub or garbage bag beneath the bucket to catch the overflow.

Your wine is likely to be thin and weak. You could add sugar to increase the ABV, but to do this you would need to get another bucket, or you would surely overflow the present bucket. And it would not help the thinness.

Not sure what to advise you. I would just let it go, drink lots of thin, weak wine, and start another kit soon with the lessons learned from the school of hard knocks.

 

[BABRU]

I would *** 2 or 3 pounds of sugar and stir gently until it dissolves. The sugar will add no appreciable volume. If foam looks like it will overtop ferment bucket use a measuring cup to remove some. You can allow removed must to ferment in a pitcher, bowl or whatever you have, just cover it with a towel. When ferment is complete you may have too much for your carboy and remember to save room for the flavor pack and headspace for mixing and degassing. Use extra from primary to fill bottles or jugs and let it settle and clear then use to top off carboy or just drink it like white wine without the added flavor. Remember to sanitize anything that comes into contact with the wine.

 

[sour_grapes]

The sugar will add no appreciable volume.

3 lbs. would add about a quart to the volume.

 

[Steve Wargo]

2 lbs of sugar added to 1 gallon of water and fermented should come out to 12.5 to 12.8 % alcohol. That assumes you added just 1 extra gallon of water

 

[tradowsk]

You could add honey and turn this into a hydromel mead.
Or you can add a few cans of fruit juice concentrate to add flavor/sugar without too much extra volume.

Like above, your wine will probably turn out thin if you just let it ride. I would remove a gallon of must (put it in a glass jug or something and stick it in the fridge) and add sugar/honey/concentrate to bump up the flavor and abv.

 

[stickman]

Don't forget to mention the possible volcano when dry sugar is added to that fermenting batch.

 

[7munkee]

Don't forget to mention the possible volcano when dry sugar is added to that fermenting batch.

This happened to me on my third batch. I added 4 cups of sugar to my 5 gallon carboy after a day of fermenting.

BIG mistake. I had foam everywhere and lost like half a gallon.

I would add juice concentrate instead.