My first readings

[Catfish]

I got my wine thief in the mail today and here is what my readings told me so far. Keep in mind that I bought this juice from the local vineyard. I added 10 pounds of sugar per 4 gallons of juice in each carboy. Except for 1 of the Catawbas. I haven't racked or anything just let them sit. The temp is around 68 degrees is my guess. I will get a thermometer down there soon to keep track.


Concord-Started September 12th- S.G. is the lowest of all carboys at 1.020. It is the least sweet tasting of the 5 carboys. I actually didn't like how it taste.

Niagara- Started September 12th-S.G. reading 1.040. Taste sweet and hopefully it turns out good because we love a good niagara wine.

Catawba- Started September 26th- S.G. reading 1.050 -I did 2 carboys of catawba that are both the same recipe. Just 10 pounds of sugar. They both taste very good and have that bubbly taste to them.

Catawba #2- Started October 17th- S.G. reading 1.060-8 pounds of sugar-It was my favorite. It has the same bubbly taste as the other two but tasted better imo.

Does it make sense that the one with less sugar has the most alchohol content and taste the sweetest as of right now?

Thanks for your help everyone.

 

[winemaker_3352]

If the sugar content in the grapes was higher than the other. Picking the grapes there are grapes that are riper than others.

So if in the initial SG was higher do to the brix of the grapes which would also indicate TA levels could be higher. So yeah - it is not impossible.

 

[Wade E]

Are these still fermenting? Thats a lot of sugar added when at least some of them most likely didnt need any sugar added at all as the natural sugars would have worked just fine.

 

[Catfish]

Yes they are still fermenting. They are all bubbling nicely except the concord it bubbles about every 3 minutes. Since it hasn't fermented much should I be worried?

Wade I'm not sure why they add so much sugar around here. I briefly spoke with 2 people near me. 1 of them won best of show for his catawba at a wine expo last year. He adds between 2.25 pounds and 2.50 pounds of sugar per gallon in his wines. Must work I guess. lol

 

[Catfish]

The concord has slowed down a lot. Should i try to speed up the fermentation?

 

[Wade E]

Well it all depends on the available sugars from when they are picked. If picked too early the sugar ill be low and the acid will tyupically be very high so in that even sugar will b needed and usually either a acid lowering agen or cold stabilization to drop some of the acids out will also be needed. Just let the wine finish fermenting, it will always slow down near the end and this is normal. This is the yeast slowly dieing off as the abv overcomes the yeast or the ugars are just running out for the yeast to turn into alc.