Adding sugar did add volume?

[HomeBrew]

Before starting my winemaking, I looked up how much of an increase in volume of liquid happens when X amount of sugar is added, because I planned to dissolve all my sugar into the hot tea I was adding, to make it easier than trying to dissolve it into cold juice.

Every answer I found on Google, claimed the volume doesn't increase - but nothing could be further from the truth!

This really messed me up last night, because I planned on doing 2 x 5L demijohns, but ended up with 10L of liquid after adding about 2000g of sugar to 1000ml of hot tea (which created 2000ml of incredibly sweet tea) thus there would be no space at all left in each 5L demijohn.

Based on what I found, adding 1g of sugar adds 0.5ml to the volume of liquid.

That means adding 1000g of sugar to 4L of juice means there's going to be 4500ml of juice after adding the sugar, in other words it's about the right amount for a demijohn, if filling to the shoulder.

Adding tea also posed another issue - it's adding more volume and thus reducing the sugar per liter, throwing off all my calculations. I'm going to just buy some powdered tannins for next time (or don't bother adding it) to avoid all this!

The first (test) batch of wine I made (from only 2L of juice) came out great without adding tannins.

I've tweaked my calc thing to account for it, rant over!

 

[sour_grapes]

Before starting my winemaking, I looked up how much of an increase in volume of liquid happens when X amount of sugar is added, because I planned to dissolve all my sugar into the hot tea I was adding, to make it easier than trying to dissolve it into cold juice.

Every answer I found on Google, claimed the volume doesn't increase - but nothing could be further from the truth!

This really messed me up last night, because I planned on doing 2 x 5L demijohns, but ended up with 10L of liquid after adding about 2000g of sugar to 1000ml of hot tea (which created 2000ml of incredibly sweet tea) thus there would be no space at all left in each 5L demijohn.

Based on what I found, adding 1g of sugar adds 0.5ml to the volume of liquid.

That means adding 1000g of sugar to 4L of juice means there's going to be 4500ml of juice after adding the sugar, in other words it's about the right amount for a demijohn, if filling to the shoulder.

Adding tea also posed another issue - it's adding more volume and thus reducing the sugar per liter, throwing off all my calculations. I'm going to just buy some powdered tannins for next time (or don't bother adding it) to avoid all this!

The first (test) batch of wine I made (from only 2L of juice) came out great without adding tannins.

I've tweaked my calc thing to account for it, rant over!

Pretty close! Fermcalc says that would give you 4619 ml.

You may be interested in the lengthy discussion in a recent thread that centered on the volume change that you have encountered: Calculating potential alcohol on Chocolate Raspberry Port

 

[HomeBrew]

Cheers, yes it was slightly over now I come to think of it. I'll tweak the calc again.

EDIT: I just based it on what happened when I added 1920g of sugar to 960ml of tea and it came out to 2110ml. The calculation has ended up:

Sugar (g) /1.67 + liquid (ml) = total ml
or
Sugar (g) *0.5988 + liquid (ml) = total ml

It works out around 1000g of sugar added to 1000ml = 1600ml.

 

[BarrelMonkey]

Sugar (g) /1.67 + liquid (ml) = total ml
or
Sugar (g) *0.5988 + liquid (ml) = total ml

It works out around 1000g of sugar added to 1000ml = 1600ml.

This is exactly the calculation that I use: 1kg sugar adds 600mL volume

 

[sour_grapes]

And FermCalc agrees!

 

[Raptor99]

The easy way to do it:
* Add only part of the water/juice to the must/tea (less than you will ultimately need)
* Calculate the amount of sugar needed for the final target volume
* Dissolve the sugar in hot water/tea, cool and mix into the must
* Add more water/tea/juice to bring the total volume up to the target volume

 

[BernardSmith]

The easy way to do it:
* Add only part of the water/juice to the must/tea (less than you will ultimately need)
* Calculate the amount of sugar needed for the final target volume
* Dissolve the sugar in hot water/tea, cool and mix into the must
* Add more water/tea/juice to bring the total volume up to the target volume

The only quarrel I have with your point is that you should better aim for the target ABV and so the target SG rather than the volume. Your primary can always be a larger volume food grade bucket. You need much less volumes for the secondary, which you want to fill but aiming for the final ABV allows you to hit what should be the more important target. You want to bottle five gallons but you ferment six? Why is that a problem? You wanted a wine with 12% ABV but now it's 15% or 9%? How is that good practice?

 

[Raptor99]

The only quarrel I have with your point is that you should better aim for the target ABV and so the target SG rather than the volume.

This is a valid point. I usually set a target volume larger than my final goal, so that I have enough for topping off. If it ends up a little over that, it is not a problem.

Initially I add less than the final liquid amount. For 1 gal. target volume, it might be short by 1 pint. Then I calculate how much sugar to add to 1 pint so that when blended with the existing 7 pints it will have the correct SG. The sugar addition will increase the volume of the 1 pint by a little bit, so that may throw my calculations off a little. But pouring sugar directly into the primary will also increase the volume a little bit. Since SG indirectly measures g/L dissolved solids, either method will be a little bit off since adding sugar increases the volume. I suppose that adding sugar a little bit at a time and stirring for a long time between each addition would allow you to reach a more precise target OG. But the danger there is measuring SG before all of the sugar is dissolved.

Using my method, I usually hit very close to my target SG. My recent Cranberry orange had a target initial Brix 19.5 (11.1% potential ABV) vs. actual 20 Brix (11/5% ABV). That is close enough for my purposes. There are several different approaches to this, and I have no quarrel with anyone who does it differently.