SG too high?

[DageonYar]

Following the potato/anise recipe that I posted to the recipe section, and the batch just cooled to 70, so I put the pectic enzyme and yeast nutrient. I took an SG measurement, and it's 1102. Is this too high? If so, can I just add some water to the batch to reduce the SG before I drop the yeast in (in 12hrs...)?

Many tks.

 

[St Allie]

as a general rule of thumb..

keeping your fruit or vegetable based wines starting gravity (SG) between 1.080 and 1.095 is best for finished flavour.

Diluting it down with water is a good idea, at the current level, the finished alcohol will be so strong you will have rocket fuel, with a strong alcohol taste masking your potato anise flavour.

Allie

 

[Luc]

At 1102 you would get a wine with 13% to 14% alcohol.
Far to high for an anise wine (just made one myself).

I would indeed bring it down to a potential alcohol
of 11% being at 1.085.

Watch the acidity also.

Luc

 

[DageonYar]

Ok ty. I added water to bring it down to 1090. Will adding all this water thin out the flavour of the finished wine? I had to add about 1 cup to a 1 gallon batch to bring it down this far.

 

[Wade E]

Thats what I was just going to post about reading the 1st few posts. I would have been inclined to tell you that adding that much water would probably water it down too much, how much aqua did you add to do so?

 

[DageonYar]

At least a cup, maybe a bit more. Batch started as 1Gal + sugar so maybe 1Gal.24oz if I go by Jack Keller's chart (http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/hydrom.asp). He calls for 2 1/2lbs of sugar to 1Gal of potato water which would come to 1.095 or so. Maybe I just boiled off too much water to start with. At least it's just a small batch

When should I be able to taste to find out how weak it will be? I'm about to drop the yeast.

 

[St Allie]

I don't think a cup of water will matter that much personally, it's certainly better than having such a high alcohol level in the finished wine. Plus if you want to backsweeten with a simple sugar and maybe a touch more of anise flavour, you can do that after the fermentation is complete.

oh and jack kellers recipes often call for too much sugar.. it's best to use his sugar measures as a guide and add sugar with judicious use of your hydrometer to check the levels.

Allie