I am very new to winemaking and am rather obsessed. I have done several different batches, but it seems as though commonly the yeast is working so well it always ends up dry… I follow exact recipes but I do use a hydrometer and I think I am finally understanding the concept. Use it first to measure the sugar which is basically 1.95 (if I have my decimals in the right place) and it ferments for a week or so and then I put it in the secondary fermenter at around 1.4 ish? Does this sound somewhat correct? I guess my question is this… do I let the yeast eventually die on its own or do I kill the yeast with a camden tablet when it sort of "tastes" right or reaches 1.00ISH on the hydrometer? I basically like a dry wine, I do NOT like it super sweet. But good GOSH my strawberry tastes like rubbing alcohol! I understand I think the backsweeting concept… and I can do that. But it is it common to ALWAYS back sweeten? My peach is very dry also… I have always grown up canning, etc. so YES I had a freezer FULL of fruit that I felt like needed "cleaning out" -- so I have several going...
Why do I always have dry wine?
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Let it die off is corrdct, then let it clear, then age it some and then back sweeten it after adding kmeta and potassium sorbate.
Hi
It sounds like even tho you think you are confused you really do understand what is happening. Basically one always ferments to dry, adds kmeta, lets the wine clear, adds sorbate, then backsweetens to what ever point they wish. Overtime wine seems to sweeten up just a touch, so most folks sweeten just short of what they like.
Campden does not kill yeast. It stuns yeast. Sorbate does not kill yeast either. It is like birth control for yeast meaning it can no longer reproduce. Only over time will the remaining yeast die off, then drop and become sediment . You cannot safely bottle anything that hasn't been sorbated as any residual sugar could start fermenting at any time and make bottle bombs out of your wine.
It sounds like you already have some lovely wines that just need a couple bench tests to determine how much backsweetening will make them perfect for your palate.
Pam in cinti
It sounds like even tho you think you are confused you really do understand what is happening. Basically one always ferments to dry, adds kmeta, lets the wine clear, adds sorbate, then backsweetens to what ever point they wish. Overtime wine seems to sweeten up just a touch, so most folks sweeten just short of what they like.
Campden does not kill yeast. It stuns yeast. Sorbate does not kill yeast either. It is like birth control for yeast meaning it can no longer reproduce. Only over time will the remaining yeast die off, then drop and become sediment . You cannot safely bottle anything that hasn't been sorbated as any residual sugar could start fermenting at any time and make bottle bombs out of your wine.
It sounds like you already have some lovely wines that just need a couple bench tests to determine how much backsweetening will make them perfect for your palate.
Pam in cinti
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For a light fruit wine like strawberry 1.095 (corrected your decimal point) is too high and that is why it tastes like alcohol. Start with a bit lower SG. It is always dry because you let it go to dry (1.000 or lower).Then if you want it sweeter, add the k-meta and sorbate and sweeten.
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You don't have to immediately bottle after backsweetening. My WineExpert kit says wait 14 days.
seth8530
The Atomic Wine Maker
I have found that it is often best wait a month or two after backsweetning prior to bottling that way I can see if a haze or some sort of sediment will start dropping out due to the sugars I added back in. Plus, you get to taste it again and see if it is really where you want it to be prior to bottling.
Tom_S
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I would say wait 14 months. Or at the very least 6 months.
beano
Regular Guy
....and maybe taste it again, and then again, and maybe start over cause your not really sure....oops, I've told on myself again.
Nope, sg is specific gravity.
Although you could have ssg - starting specific gravity.
Honestly, I wish kit manufacturers and home winemakers would stop using sg for their sugar measurements. Brix is so much more natural and easy for people to wrap their heads around.
seth8530
The Atomic Wine Maker
Nope, sg is specific gravity.
Although you could have ssg - starting specific gravity.
Honestly, I wish kit manufacturers and home winemakers would stop using sg for their sugar measurements. Brix is so much more natural and easy for people to wrap their heads around.
Well, the issue with using brix instead of SG is that trying to measure it is in itself a misnomer. You can accuratly measure the specific gravity with a hydrometer and no matter what the temperature is or what the ABV is, the SG that you measure is the SG that you have measured. Now whether that actually correlates to the correct amount of sugars in the is a different question.
Brix, would make much more sense if brix was what the hydrometer was actually measuring, ( it actually measures density and correlates that to the brix). Plus, when you get close to finished in a fermentation you get negative brix which are a completely ridiculous concept.
Now, if we had cheap devices that could measure the actual sugar content of the wine, that would be another question and then I would say that brix are a much better unit of measure.
Just my input.
BernardSmith
Senior Member
Nope, sg is specific gravity.
Although you could have ssg - starting specific gravity.
Honestly, I wish kit manufacturers and home winemakers would stop using sg for their sugar measurements. Brix is so much more natural and easy for people to wrap their heads around.
I dunno. Wrapping my head around a brix would give me a terrible headache - and a large lump.
I dunno. Wrapping my head around a brix would give me a terrible headache - and a large lump.
That would wrapping a brix around your head, not wrapping your head around brix.
BernardSmith
Senior Member
I think the result will be the same whether my head is wrapped around brix or the brix is wrapped around my head. Pain and suffering. Pain and suffering.
Both SG and Brix are measured using the same tool, a hydrometer, and are just a different scale for the same thing. In fact, my hydrometers have three scales printed on the same paper inside the same instrument so saying they are not directly related to each other is silly. Yes, they are both measuring the density of the fluid in question in relation to pure water and not actual sugar but for our purpose it is close enough.
EVERY commercial winemaker I know, and I know a lot of them, all use brix and not sg. If it is the industry standard for commercial winemakers then why would those of us aspiring to do things like the big boys choose a scale that they don't?
To me, it is much easier to grasp that 25% sugar is 25 brix and to make a slight mental adjustment that the etoh causes the brix reading to go just a bit bit below 0 than to grasp that 25% sugar is 1.10 sg and dry wine is 1.0 (or whatever the correct numbers are)
seth8530
The Atomic Wine Maker
I hear what you are saying. I just kind of wanted to explain why from a lab/science aspect why it would be tempting for kit manufacturers and others who come from a proccess/lab driven background to use density as their primary correlation between sugar and alcohol. Especially considering density is the easiest measurement to get a true measure of.
