where's the alcohol

[JeffZ]

i've made several kits and juice pails and never had this problem.
I made a pinot grigio from a juice pail. Everything seemed to go well and i
transferred to my secondary when the hydrometer was around 1.02.

I let it sit in the carboy for 9 months - but now when i taste it - it's very 'flat'.
Not alot of alcohol content - like weak fruit juice. Where did i go wrong?
Anything I can now add? Should I leave it longer? Thanks.

 

[Scooter68]

Please confirm is the SG 1.020 or 1.002 ?

Big difference and depending on the starting SG - the alcohol content of a ferment stopped at 1.020 instead of all the way dry at .990 would be a difference of about 4% not a small amount of difference.
If it started at and SG of 1.080 and was intended to ferment dry at .990 it WOULD have had an ABV of 11.81% - perfectly fine.
If instead it stopped at 1.020 then the ferment stalled out then you have an ABV of about 7.87 and that would be a weak wine.

It sounds like the fermentation stalled out if the SG is really 1.020

 

[Thig]

It is usually helpful to show the SG out to the third decimal then there is little doubt whether it is 1.020 or 1.002.

 

[Scooter68]

It is usually helpful to show the SG out to the third decimal then there is little doubt whether it is 1.020 or 1.002.

Very True - Otherwise we wonder if it was a newbie mistake or a typo.

 

[G259]

. . . yes, and I would say to add a little sugar or taste a little, to know the sugar content is there. I would then add a little yeast nutrient and then more yeast. This is all a minimal investment, and quite possibly a solution, even if it becomes a partial one. I'm sure there are more.

 

[salcoco]

check your ph and acid level. your description reflect low acid and high ph making the wine taste flat. Nominally a kit wine would start at about 1.092 yielding a 12% wine not a noticeable alcohol content. it is possible that the fermentation also stuck verify your fish sg.

 

[salcoco]

to check if lack of acid is problem, take a sample and sprinkle some tartaric acid into the wine similar to salting food. due taste test if improvement do a bench trial to determine best addition. to perform bench trial dissolve 10 grams acid in 100ml of water. take 100ml sample of wine, add 1 ml in first, two ml in second and so forth. do taste test. each ml added to sample is equal to one gram per liter of larger batch of wine

 

[Bts]

Is it sweet? Is it tart? Sweet means fermentation didn't finish, that's bad. Not tart means you got low acidity/high PH juice. I'm fairly new to this but I've seen several juice pails especially California juice that were very deficient in acid. Tasted bland and flabby, PH tests in the 4.X range, and took a boatload of tartaric acid to fix them. If it's not sweet then I'm guessing it's the acidity. It could be 15% ABV, but if the PH is 4.X rather than 3.X it'll taste flat and lousy.