castti

Recipes 

Morning, there are 2 gallons of blackberry wine waiting to be bottled, 1 gallon of apple wine that is getting clear and is bubble free, lastly a gallon of grape wine just racked today. 2 people who drink wine say the blackberry is dry. I think it tastes like wine. How does one decide how much sugar to put into a dry wine to make it sweeter? The only thing R and I know is that we do not want thick, syrupy wine. The 2nd question is about times in recipes. The apple wine is clearing and bubble free a week earlier than the recipe says. Is this normal? Happy day, Jen

saramc

Recipes 

Backsweetening is an individual taste. You need to do bench trials of the wine backsweetenrd but chilled and at room temp. Just know that one cup sugar will increase SG by 0.020

If you trial 1/4 tsp in four ounces then you would need 1.5 cups sugar per five gallons to backsweeten to that equivalent. And FWIW many find that 1/2 cup per gallon is a nice backsweetening point. But just remember to taste room temp and chilled.

The timeframes in recipes are essentially just guides..as you get more experience you will ditch timeframes and rely upon hydrometer and inspection of wine. But timeframes do help as you learn..they can be impacted by type of yeast, temperature, nutrients, etc. But what do you mean by bubblefree?

Sara

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Yooper

Recipes 

I don't like my wines sweetened at all, and I like almost all my wines as dry table wines. As saramc said, you have to try it to see how you like it.

It's hard when you don't have much wine to start with, but a good way to do it is to take out a few samples and sweeten them a bit differently. Try them all, and pick the one you like best. Take the SG reading of that sample, and sweeten the wine to that amount. One tip- sweeten it a tiny bit less, as the wine tastes sweeter in the bottle. So, if you like it at 1.010, sweeten it to 1.008.

Don't forget to stabilize the wine first, of course! Otherwise, it'll start fermentation back up and the bottles and corks will blow up.

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saramc

Recipes 

Good point yooper...I failed to mention you can try 1/4 tsp per four oz, 1/8 tsp and even 1/2 tsp. Have you given any thought to oaking that blackberry? YUM

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castti

Recipes 

Thank you for the information. Blowing up does not sound tidy; might be fun though. Is oaking better with berry wines? It was the yum. There seems to be so many different recipes that look delicious. The bubbles that float up the edge of the bottle when fermenting. If there are enough of the bubbles the airlock gives a good bubble. Will get back to you on the tasting. Thank you.