Confused about sugar addition

[JimmyT]

I also had a seperate piece of paper that was in the plastic tube my hydrometer came in. It had instructions on what to do if the wine stopped above and below 1.000. If your wine finishes above 1.000 you'd subtract the amount off that will take you to 1.000. If it goes below 1.000 then you'd add the amount it drops below 1.000. If say you start out with an sg of 1.085 you alc on the hydrometer would be 11%. If your wine stopped at 1.010 then your hydrometer would show you have 1.3% alcohol. That's showing you what alcohol is possible to attain from the amount of sugar left. Since it stopped fermenting before that then you subtract that amount off your initial of 11%. So 11%-1.3%=9.7%
If it stopped below 1.000 at say .990 than since it went below 1.000 which would give you 11% from your starting point, you'd have to add 1.3% to your total since it's more than your initial showed you'd end up with. So 11%+1.3%=12.3%. Hope that didn't confuse you more but thats what my paper said. There's a really good video in the tutorials that'll show you how to read a hydrometer and how to figure all this out.
In short if it finishes above 1.000 you subtract the amount left to 1.000 and if it's below 1.000 than you add to your total.

 

[seth8530]

Seth,
Not sure if your post is in reference to my post(s). If not, disregard. If so, again, maybe I wasn't being clear(which is possible ). I am saying in the beginning, if I start with an SG of 1.085 and add sugar up to 1.100(which I would know by taking hydrometer readings along the way), I now have my starting number. If it happens to ferment down to .990, this is where I "add" my additional ABV number in.

It works for your case so long as it did not have significant fermentation in between. However, what does not work is if something like this happens.

Start at 1.100 Drop to 1.020. Add sugar water up to 1.050 ferment down to 1.000 and then claim you had a gravity drop of 130 points and an ABV of 17%.


The part that kills that is the dilution between the two steps. However, I have outlined in the past how it is possible to account for that. That being said, I think a grand total of no one has used it lol.

 

[wineforfun]

It works for your case so long as it did not have significant fermentation in between. However, what does not work is if something like this happens.

Start at 1.100 Drop to 1.020. Add sugar water up to 1.050 ferment down to 1.000 and then claim you had a gravity drop of 130 points and an ABV of 17%.


The part that kills that is the dilution between the two steps. However, I have outlined in the past how it is possible to account for that. That being said, I think a grand total of no one has used it lol.

No I totally understand what you are saying. That is a whole other situation and I believe different from what the OP is having issues with.

My example/comments are strictly on checking everything pre-ferment. You take a reading, SG too low for your liking, you add sugar, take another reading, etc.
There is no fermentation in my instance as no yeast has been added.

 

[seth8530]

Yeah, I think we get each other now. . I might need to reread the original posters question again just to be sure.