Help with SG reading for a Island Mist Kit

This is my first Island Mist Kit, Green Apple Riseling. My intial SG, after adding extra sugar, was 1.080. It fermented down to 0.985. I added the k-meta and sorbate. Degassed and added F-pack followed by Isinglass. The kit instructions say the SG after adding the F-pack should be 1.010-1.018. I checked the SG and it is 1.000 after the F-pack addition. I checked my hydrometer with tap water and it is reading correctly. What is the problem and why is it reading low?

Thanks,
Craig

at this point i would say RDWHAHB. don't sweat it. just because your FG is low doesn't mean your brew is bad. just not as sweet ... if you want you can ad more sugar to get it up to the FG you want.

The Island Mist kits have you stabilize at .998 (approximately) and your SG got down to .985 which is .013 lower than what the kit calls for. Now you add you F-Pack back to the mix and your SG comes up with 1.000 when it should be reading 1.010-1.018.

If your must had only gone to an SG of .998 and you added the F-Pack you would have been right in the ballpark with a 1.013 SG, but because your must fermented so dry the F-Pack didn't have enough sugar to raise the SG to the desired level per the instructions.

However everything will be fine, you will still have a good brew.

Thanks for the reply. I am still new to making wine, and I did not realize you could go below .998 as the instructions say. Therefore I did not think to stop the fermentation when it gets there. I see how the extra 0.01 is made up from fermenting to .985. Next time will watch more carefully. This time I will just add sugar to bring it up to my tastes.

Thanks..

You CAN'T have got to .985. It's just not possible, unless you have a highly specialized hydrometer that goes below .990. Even then, unless your alcohol level is over 20% (again, not possible) then you didn't get below .990.

My guess is that you got to .9985. I'd double check the hydrometer.

I just have the cheap hydrometer from midwest. It has 4 more dashed lines above .990. The hydrometer does not say .980 above .990, it just has 4 extra dash lines representing .002. I checked it 4 times over a 3 day period. It was at 72 F over the 3 day period. So I don't know, unless my technique is wrong?