Dry Wine

I started a batch of apple/cranberry/rasberry and cherry wine and I started with an SG of 1.091. I'm using Lavin 1118 yeast and I dont want the wine to be TOO dry. A little dry is good for my taste but I dont know what SG to stop at to keep it from getting too dry.

Any suggestions??

Thanks!!

Stopping an active fermentation is like stopping a freight train- not at all easy, and sometimes impossible.

Since your OG was managable, I'd suggest doing it the easy way. Let it ferment out completely. It will then clear, and stop dropping lees. Once that's done, it's easy to stabilize the wine with sorbate and campden and then it can be sweetened to taste.

I like to set up a few samples, and then add some simple syrup to it until it's just right. Then I check the SG. And then I sweeten the whole batch to just under that SG. What I mean is that if I love the wine at 1.010, I'll sweeten it to 1.008, as it seems to get sweeter tasting in the bottle.

I'm not much for sweet wines, so the few wines I sweeten I tend to sweeten to 1.000, or just off-dry. I don't know what you will like best, but if you set up several samples as I do, with some at 1.000, 1.006, 1.010, etc, you'll see which you like the best.

I dont like wines over sweet but I dont like them extremely dry. I'll let it furment out completly and sweeten with dextrose.

Any guess on how long it will take to furment out completely? I was figuring 4-5 weeks....

perschml said:

I dont like wines over sweet but I dont like them extremely dry. I'll let it furment out completly and sweeten with dextrose.

Any guess on how long it will take to furment out completely? I was figuring 4-5 weeks....

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Well, it should be about done in a week or two, but it won't be clear for at least a month or so. If you rack off the lees when the wine is 1.020-1.010, that will help it clear. When you can read a newspaper through a sample, and it's not dropping lees anymore, it's ready to stabilize, sweeten, and bottle.

You can sweeten dextrose if you want. I like regular sugar, but sometimes I've used juice for more of the original flavor, or even honey.

Sweet sounds good!!

What do you stabalize it with? Im still learning so any advice is much appreciated.

K-meta and sorbate. The combination is required -- adding only sorbate will slow the yeast down, but not really stop them. I did this once (not adding meta) and it carbonated the apfelwein; lucky for me it was done in champagne bottles with re-usable corks, so I was pleasantly surprised instead of unpleasantly.