Hi there brewers,
I have been making wine for a year now and done four batches. One of the things I have found is that my wine is often sweet, and I would like it less so.
I have recently brought a hydrometer and have used it for a batch of blackberry and raspberry wine that I have just transferred to a demijohn. I wanted to take a reading before adding sugar so that I could work out how much sugar was present in the fruit, and alter the amount of sugar to be added. However I was not able to as I did not have a deep enough vessel to put the hydrometer in at that stage in the process.
The recipe I used (page 189 in C.J.J. Berry's book) called for the yeast to be added to the primary fermentation a few days before adding sugar, so presumably some of the natural sugar in the fruit would have been converted into alcohol during those few days.
After the 5 days in the primary (4 of those with yeast) I added 2 and a half lb of sugar (the recipe called for 3) and took my first SG reading (I have since brought a trial vessel). It read 1.082. This was lower than I expected (I think it was low because there was actually more than a gallon of liquid, which I only discovered when transferring to the demijohn). According to the table on page 81 of the aforementioned book that SG reading means that the wine will end up as around about 11 per cent.
However because some sugar may have been converted during the primary phase it might come out a little stronger, yes?
Any thoughts or pointers most appreciated.
Ross
I have been making wine for a year now and done four batches. One of the things I have found is that my wine is often sweet, and I would like it less so.
I have recently brought a hydrometer and have used it for a batch of blackberry and raspberry wine that I have just transferred to a demijohn. I wanted to take a reading before adding sugar so that I could work out how much sugar was present in the fruit, and alter the amount of sugar to be added. However I was not able to as I did not have a deep enough vessel to put the hydrometer in at that stage in the process.
The recipe I used (page 189 in C.J.J. Berry's book) called for the yeast to be added to the primary fermentation a few days before adding sugar, so presumably some of the natural sugar in the fruit would have been converted into alcohol during those few days.
After the 5 days in the primary (4 of those with yeast) I added 2 and a half lb of sugar (the recipe called for 3) and took my first SG reading (I have since brought a trial vessel). It read 1.082. This was lower than I expected (I think it was low because there was actually more than a gallon of liquid, which I only discovered when transferring to the demijohn). According to the table on page 81 of the aforementioned book that SG reading means that the wine will end up as around about 11 per cent.
However because some sugar may have been converted during the primary phase it might come out a little stronger, yes?
Any thoughts or pointers most appreciated.
Ross