Made a SpecGrav mistake, now need help.

[Johntodd]

Hi! Thanks for stopping by. I'm not a total newbie, but I've only made batches of wine off-and-on over the last 20 years. I know the process and have never had a spoiled batch, yet, I am still a knucklehead on some things. Like this one:

My problem is this: I started a batch of cherry wine last Sunday. I read a Specific gravity of 2.0 and assumed all is well. However, after reviewing a tutorial here, I see that the SpecGrav is really 1.020. My bad.

Another problem is I do not know how much water is in the vat. My Father taught me winemaking and it was always the "use your judgement" approach. It's a regular tall food-grade plastic fermenter with a spigot on bottom and a screw-on gasket sealed cap with an airlock hole. It's mostly full of fluid. Fermentation seemed to be going OK. Frothy when stirring, etc.

This Sunday (June 9th) is when I've scheduled to rack it into the secondary.

So, what can I do? Shall I take some of the fluid and boil it on the stove to dissolve sugar, then pour it back in? How much sugar? Shall I do it today or wait until I rack it Sunday?

Thank you very much for your help. I'm anxious to save this batch, since the fruit is from our own farm. We grew the cherries ourselves, and this is the first harvest. Next year, the orchard will start producing! A fun time is guaranteed for all!

Thanks again!
-Johntodd

 

[seth8530]

Yeah, I can help you out and so can others. First we need to determine the volume of wine. Then, we will determine how much sugar to add to it to hit a target sugar.

 

[GreginND]

What is the SG now? I think you can easily add sugar to a specific gravity that you need to get the right alcohol.

For example, if you wanted to start with a SG of 1.090 which is almost 12% alcohol when fermented out and you really started with a SG of 1.020, that means you were 0.070 short of sugar.

If your SG right now is say 1.000, simply add sugar a little at a time making sure it is dissolved to bring the SG up to 1.070 and let it continue fermenting.

 

[Johntodd]

OK, I went ahead and added 8 cups of sugar. The SG is now 1.010.

Unfortunately I didnt measure the SG before I added the sugar! ARGH!!!

If I add too much sugar, I'll just end up with wine sweeter than what I wanted, right?

 

[Stressbaby]

No, assuming fermentation doesn't stick you will end up with higher ABV than you planned.
Give us your volume, and we can still work backwards and figure it out.

 

[Stressbaby]

Also, be sure your sugar is thorough stirred and dissolved. I know from experience that failure to stir and dissolve the sugar leads to trouble.

 

[Johntodd]

16" high, 6" radius, about 14" of contents inside.

Online calc gives me:

1810 cubic inches
or about 6.8544 gallons.

This includes everything: cherries, yeast, sugar, water, etc.

I must say this is approximate.

Spec.Grav - 1.010 after adding 8 cups sugar. It is dissolved and stirred well.
Thanks so much!

 

[seth8530]

8 cups of sugar is around 1600 grams of sugar and your volume is close to 26 liters. Which gives you 61.53 g/l of sugar added in your addition which should of brought you up to around 20 points IF you assumed the wine was at .990 and that all the volume in the must was juice (not true).. I believe that your sugar is not really all that well mixed in your must.

Also, I get 1582 inches cubed worth of must volume by using the 14" which gives me close to your volume in gallons.

If I was you I would act like you had a target gravity of 1.090 and thus need to add 70 points worth of sugar.. Ie 189 grams of sugar per liter or 4.89 Kg worth of sugar for the whole volume to give you the 12% abv potential. which converts roughly into 21.77 cups of sugar needed total. You already added 8 cups so now you need to add 13-14 cups of sugar..

I would recomend taking a small volume of your must and heating it with the sugar to disolve it really well.

 

[Johntodd]

I would recommend taking a small volume of your must and heating it with the sugar to dissolve it really well.

That's what I always do. When I added the 8 cups, I withdrew over a quart, boiled it on the stove, added the sugar, and stirred. I made sure it was dissolved, then added it back in.

I do the same thing when starting a new batch: Boil some of the water to dissolve the sugar, then add it and the rest of the water, etc.

I've just finishing stirring it again, just a moment ago. Fermentation has already kicked up and it is frothy and "good smelling" again. It was a bit slow this morning. Seems like the sugar has already kicked up the yeast a bit.

OK, I'll add the other 13 cups of sugar.

 

[Johntodd]

On second thought...

In order to be more accurate, should I wait until I rack it to add the sugar? By then we will be dealing with fluid only, no fruit taking up space.

Is it OK to add that much sugar going into secondary fermentation?

 

[seth8530]

I would not wait untill secondary to add it since when you rack you tend to take a lot of yeasty beasty out of suspension. I would go ahead and do it now while the fermentation is still active and rather happy. BTW which yeast did you use?

Also, I must of misunderstood you, I thought you said you added the sugar directly into the must.

 

[Johntodd]

OK, I've added 13 cups of sugar. Did it by drawing some fluid, boiling it, dissolving the sugar, and adding it back to the vessel.

Ended up with too much fluid! It would have touched the top, so I drew off a "soy sauce" bottle. Now have that one sitting in the bedroom with a balloon on top. LOL!

Yeast is Montrachet. All I got. Dad bought it in 1997, I inherited it a few years ago. Been stored in a non-climate controlled area (old garage) since 2004. Still works!

 

[Stressbaby]

Johntodd, what is the SG now?

Do you have any clue as to how many pounds of cherries you used?

 

[Johntodd]

SG is now 1.040.

The ferment is frothy and audibly bubbling.

I'm concerned about the accuracy of the hydrometer. All that gas coming up and the fruit - will that affect the way the meter "floats"?

As for the cherries, I used 4 "gallon ziploc" bags of it. 3 bags were frozen from last year's harvest (Yay ruptured cells!), and 1 from this year (damn birds!)

 

[Stressbaby]

IMHO, I don't think it would hurt at all to add another 1kg of sugar.

Some assumptions:
1. Given that after 8 cups of sugar, your SG was 1.010, you fermented out all of the sugar in the cherries.
2. Your 1 gallon ziplocs had around 4#/bag. You had around 16# of cherries.
3. You used sweet cherries with 14g sugar/100g fruit. (Sour cherries are 8g/100g fruit per Jack Keller.)
4. You have just under a gallon of non-fermentable cherry-like stuff so your secondary will end up with ~6 gallons.

This means you had 7.25kg of fruit with 14g sugar/100g which yields 1.015kg sugar in the cherries.
You added 1.6kg + 2.6kg sugar so the total sugar is ~5.2kg.
This yields a total starting gravity of 1.076 and per WineCalc, ABV of 10.1%.

If you added another kg of sugar, then you have 6.2kg of sugar which gets you to 1.089 and 11.9% ABV.

 

[seth8530]

Yeah, but dont forget he has already fermented some already before we added the first major sugar addition.

 

[Stressbaby]

Right, I'm assuming that was the sugar in the cherries, about 1kg.

 

[seth8530]

Hard to make assumptions about fruit sugar content, considering that they also release an undefined amount of liquid and the such.. But not a bad assumption to make.

 

[Johntodd]

These ain't the sweetest cherries ever...sort of a middle between. We have these cherry bushes thanks to the birdshit express. They are growing around the stump of a former huge maple that was planted in the '30s. Thanks to the birds, lots of stones were dropped, giving us a veritable cherry grove. We pruned and fertilized them two years ago, and last year they started producing a bumper crop. I have no idea what the proper name/type/variety of cherries they are.

They were washed and disinfected, then lightly crushed, added to the vessel, boiling sugar water applied, backfilled with tap water, yeasted/nutrient/acid, and stirred, etc. After backfill, the temp was down enough to pitch the yeast, etc.

Remember, I started with 5 cups sugar at the beginning, then added 8 (per this thread), then added 13 (per this thread).

 

[Johntodd]

The ferment is still audibly bubbling. I haven't stirred today (and won't) in anticipation of racking tomorrow.

Think we are on track for racking Sunday? Should I add more sugar after racking?