What was I thinking?! my wine is too sweet??

[kimmy]

Hello, I was starting a batch of Cherry wine last night, and accidentally put in too much sugar. I checked the Potential alcohol this evening, and it is 25%... ahhhh, what if anything can I do to fix this little issue?? Thank you so very much for any advice. Fondly, another newbie, Kimmy

 

[Wade E]

Hi kimmy, Wow, that would finish very sweet if it even ever started fermenting at that sg. The only real way to fix that would be to dbl. everything but the sugar and you may need to add another yeast packet after doing so. With fruit wines you should start with an sg of sround 1.085 as toom much alc. will just overpower most fruit wines. Glad to hae you aboard, Can you post your recipe as most recipes on the net or in books are pretty old and usually lacking in enough fruit and have too much alc and thos makes a wek higher alc wine which usually take forever to come around to being drinkable and still lacking in flavor.

 

[TB1]

That happened to me once. so I put strawberries with it and doubled the volume and made a double batch of cherry/strawberry wine, and it turned out excellent. just review the recipes for both and combine them. and add ingredients according to your total gallons you have

Just saying it is possible to make a mixed fruit wine. is and option if you have room. I know a few that have taken excess must, froze it and added it to a later batch? Never tried it myself though. Just an idea?

 

[wyntheef]

Welcome Kimmy. The ranks keep growing.

Wade, that sounds like what happened with my mango wine last year. can you suggest any good sources of recipes that are more 'modern'?
Thanks,
Steve

 

[Wade E]

We have a good recipe source right on this sight and Im sure if you cant find one we can build one for you.

 

[wyntheef]

thanks wade.

 

[xanxer82]

good luck kimmy. Follow what the others are saying and you'll be alright.

 

[bein_bein]

Ok...maybe this is a stupid-you-should-know-better type of question/solution. Tell me if I'm wrong guys (like you have to be invited to do that...lolol)
If I were in that situation, here's is what I would try. Since you just started this wine there is no alcohol in the primary yet....your SG indicates you have a potential alcohol content of 25% if fermented to an sg of 1.0. (which means your inital SG is about 1.180 ??) For simplicity sake, let's just say initially it's 1.150 which is 19.8%abv. And we'll say that I want my final wine to have an ABV of 12%.
I would ferment the wine, checking daily, until the SG gets to 1.060 which is 7.8 ABV. Do a little math...19.8-7.8= 12.0% abv.
I would then rack the wine, and maybe even filter it, add some pot sorb and/or campden tabs. The idea being to eliminate as much yeast as possible and kill the fermenting process. I would also consider cold shocking the wine to kill the ferment process. Once this ferment process is stopped, let the wine clear, racking as needed. In theory this should give you a sweet wine at about 12% ABV....

 

[xanxer82]

or.... you could let it get to about 12-13% and add a bunch of brandy to kill the yeast and bring it to 19% leaving some residual sugar and call it a port style

 

[TB1]

You could add potassium sorbet But the reaction time may not be exact and fermentation may continue for some time.

It may also be possible to use a low alcohol tolerance yeast. If you can get it started because if the initial sugar shock a starter may be in order. But at 1.180 nether would be a sure bet.

What Hydrometer are you using? Mine doesn't even go that high.

 

[Luc]

Sorbate does not stop an active fermentation. It will stop yeast multiplying. So the living yeast would go on for some while till they die, and that might be when they run out of sugar. So like said the fermentation might go on.

Racking is an option, however you can never be sure that some yeast cells will be racked with the wine. Sorbate and sulphite adding afther the racking could do the trick, however I would not bet my fortune on that.

Adding brandy would in my opinion be the best choice.

Luc

 

[outdoorsmadness]

if you did stop fermentation at 12% with sorbate, brandy or racking wouldnt you still have a wine that would be too sweet? i would double recipie except sugar like said earlier if it were me.

 

[Wade E]

Outdoors just said what everyone should be thinking, that would be a lot of sweetness left in there!!!!!!!! I dont even think with this high of a starting sg that the yeast will even take! I would dble the size of this batch without using any sugar and even then you might have to add more water because youll still be adding more sugar with the fruit but try the dble first as we dont want you to end up with a flavor lacking wine either! Like Luc said, adding sorbate and sulfite to this wine if it ever did get off the ground and I highly dought it would is a risky at best!

 

[BobF]

Keep adding ingredients other than sugar until the SG is good. Anything else is iffy at best.

The best other option I can think of is to use a yeast with a reliable 13-14% tolerance. I wouldn't go with a higher tolerent yeast as the high alcohol level will make this aweful, requiring a VERY long time to age to get it barely drinkable. If, and this is a big if, you can get it to ferment, go ahead and let it finish sweet. Then set it aside and use it to blend with with future wines - use it as a flavored sweetener!

 

[amandacarlson]

too sweet

Hello, I was starting a batch of Cherry wine last night, and accidentally put in too much sugar. I checked the Potential alcohol this evening, and it is 25%... ahhhh, what if anything can I do to fix this little issue?? Thank you so very much for any advice. Fondly, another newbie, Kimmy

oh 25 % that sounds interesting

 

[waitsumore]

I think sometime these rogue recipes are a deliberate result in a way to sort ones self out and great learning curve but....really....
come on posters of rogue recipes give it a rest. I enjoy to see the feedback in working these over sweet recipes getting sorted with different ideas.
I am in the same situation and had to dilute my humble cherry wine 20 litres to get back on the scale to 1.10 and used CL23 yeast and ended up
with 37 litres of diluted wine which tastes really awesome and I thing its time for the Hard Hit of Brandy or some neutral spirit to cease the fermentation.
Then rack wait and bottle and wait and wait some more then add some oak and vanilla and wait some more and wait some more.............wow cant wait for an end date....

 

[Jovimaple]

@waitsumore Welcome to WMT!

Just so you know, this thread is from 2010.

 

[waitsumore]

wow ok I must have been sleeping

 

[winemaker81]

wow ok I must have been sleeping

You're far from the first person to reply to an ancient thread, and you'll not be the last. Thread necromancy is cool.

 

[Jovimaple]

It's okay. It's always fun to learn about the wine making adventures of others!