Backsweetening options

[adrianvas12]

Greetings winemakers.
Like a lot of users around I am interested in what are some of the options and your experience with backsweetening. From what I read around the forum sugar seems to be the most common used ingredient. Did anyone try fresh grapes juice i.e. the original juice, must obtained when pressing the grapes?
I read somewhere mentioning that - if that is the case, how can I preserve that juice after press time? Freezing it? Also was wondering how that will affect ABV for the end product. Will it dilute the wine?
What about honey - will that cloud the final product?
Or the fruit juice from grocery store - is that really an option? Not too sure about it.

My only concern is that the sugar will affect the taste of the final product; I don't plan on bottling right away but rather backsweetening, then wait 2-3 months or so.

Looking forward to your valuable feedback.
AV

 

[salcoco]

whatever is added will affect the taste . the addition of sugar or other sweetener is to balance the wine, the original being to alcoholic, bitter or sour. if the wine does not have any of these faults but you wish to just sweeten and keep the taste the same I would suggest using the juice of the original source you fermented.

okay options
original grape juice -just freeze then apply to finished wine when ready
glycerin- a non fermentable that does not require sorbate
Honey -do bench trial to see if it makes wine cloudy
sugar syrup,- two cups sugar to one cup water mix in a blender do bench trials

you should do bench trials on a small qty of the wine to determine dosage of any back sweetener.
add sweetener after about 6 moths aging as wine will reach its final taste level at this point.

 

[adrianvas12]

whatever is added will affect the taste . the addition of sugar or other sweetener is to balance the wine, the original being to alcoholic, bitter or sour. if the wine does not have any of these faults but you wish to just sweeten and keep the taste the same I would suggest using the juice of the original source you fermented.

okay options
original grape juice -just freeze then apply to finished wine when ready
glycerin- a non fermentable that does not require sorbate
Honey -do bench trial to see if it makes wine cloudy
sugar syrup,- two cups sugar to one cup water mix in a blender do bench trials

you should do bench trials on a small qty of the wine to determine dosage of any back sweetener.
add sweetener after about 6 moths aging as wine will reach its final taste level at this point.

Thank you for your feedback.
I will try to stick to original grape juice - what do you think about the ratio for that and ABV. I usually work with the standard 5 gl carboys. How much juice should we add so that we don't actually loose ABV?

 

[salcoco]

whatever you add will loose some small amount of abv. do bench trials as I suggested to get the correct dosage.

 

[adrianvas12]

Excellent - thank you for your help everyone!

 

[stephaniea44]

great response - thanks for help!

 

[PandemoniumWines]

Just wanted to add my two cents that I’ve recently found myself using maple syrup a lot!

 

[Living in the stixs WI]

Maple syrup and Jolly Ranchers are my choice.