A better way to back sweeten

Just thought I would pass on something that has been touched on but never specifically spelled out, in regard to back sweetening. I like nice dry dinner wine, but I also really like a dessert type wine and to make it dessert, its got to be sweet. As we all know there are lots of sugar based options for back sweetening, You can use refined sugar, syrups and concentrates. With so many to choose from which ones are best?? I have discovered that some back sweeteners work way better than others. IMHO the least effective back sweetener is table sugar. If you back sweeten by the glass what you end up tasting is two different things, wine and sugar. There is no blending of the flavors and the sugar even though sweet seams to be intrusive. If you back sweeten prior to bottling you can mellow out that table sugar taste with age but even after it has had lots of time the sugar still stands out quite a bit. a better option is to back sweeten with something more similar to what the wine was like before it was fermented. I discovered this quite by accident one evening when I was looking for a dessert type wine and all I had was a dry sour red. Having tried sugar before I new it wouldn't work, my solution was to add some grape juice, not a lot, just enough to add a hint of sweetness. the result was fantastic. As I have made different wines the same has applied. Syrups and and 100% concentrates are a much better way to back sweeten than table sugar. The final taste is more unified. Apple and white grape are common bases for commercial fruit punches but in most cases their flavor is submissive and you couldn't pick them out as a flavor. The same is true when used to back sweeten wine. They add all the sweetness required but do not mask or pollute the original flavor of the wine. Just thought I would share what I discovered.

I've been doing something similar for most of my wines, because as you're saying sugar will add sweetness, but not really blend with the flavor. I've been using fruit juices for at least half the sugars I need to backsweeten (i.e. Pure Blueberry juice with another pound or two of sugar), or I've used varietal wine concentrate which really makes for a tasty wine.

Simple syrup, equal parts sugar and water that is heated till the sugar melts in to the water is another option. Apple juice works too, but I haven't tried that with grape based wines.

I have found that even simple syrup that has not been aged for a long time still leaves you with two distinct flavors, sugar and wine. The only exception to that I have found is a simple fruit syrup where some of the unfermented original fruit is cooked in the simple syrup and then strained off. In other words strawberry syrup for strawberry wine and so forth. The problem with doing that however is you run the risk of setting the pectins so pectic enzyme should be used.

When using concentrate I have found 3 that cover most wines, purple grape juice, white grape juice and apple juice. Purple grape juice works well on all reds made from assertive fruits like, but not limited to, grape, pomegranate, raspberry, and cranberry. The white grape works well for reds that are less assertive like strawberry or cherry and all blushes and whites where color is important: pineapple rhubarb, and so on pinks whites and yellows. The apple works well on any blushes and whites where color is not an issue and where minimal sweetening is required as it has about half the sugar of the white and purple grape juices. It can also be used on reds where minimal sweeting is desired. in most cases the deep colors of the reds will not be effected by the brown of the apple.

Frozen apple juice concentrate works very well.

I have used it in reds, whites and fruit colored wines.

What about an Apfelwein that still has active yeast. I'm considering dropping some apple juice concentrate in, letting the yeast play for 3 or 4 days, then killing the yeast, letting it sit another week and giving it a shot.

Tried some of this batch at 4 weeks and it was quite dry, it's sat another week since.

keep in mind only way to actually kill the yeast is to pasteurize

I have a fresh batch of Pomegranate/blue berry with a hint of tea. It's on its second racking and it has the throat warming acloholy effect well after a swallow. The taste is in there but the pomegranate really has that dry flat flavor... maybe even a little, well not exactly bitter or tart...but if you know pomegranate, you know what I mean. I don't want to taint it with grape so I think I'll try apple concentrate. Thing is, I have a 1 gallon batch, anyone have any idea how much of the concentrate to use? I think the whole can would be way to much?

T_Baggins said:

I don't want to taint it with grape so I think I'll try apple concentrate. Thing is, I have a 1 gallon batch, anyone have any idea how much of the concentrate to use? I think the whole can would be way to much?

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There is a lot of acid in apple and you already have quite a bit in the pomegranate so I think I would use white grape. As to how much, it takes 2.5 cans of concentrate to make 1 gallon of juice, so half a can of concentrate would give you a wine with a sweetness one fifth that of the actual juice. That is where I would start than add more if you need more.

Has anybody used Stevia?

I have used Splenda and it works okay but like Daze said you can taste the sugar and then the wine.


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If I back sweeten with a grape juice will this affect the life of the wine?

The wine kit I'm using suggests that the wine should be kept for at least 3 months and no longer than 1yr. I'd like to add grape juice to my 20ltr polypin when I transfer the wine from the fermenting vessel. Once opened, the grape juice instructions recommends that the juice is used in a couple of days. I'm guessing this is because the air will start to oxidise the juice, which shouldn't happen in the polypin, but have any of you guys stored wine in excess of 3 months with grape juice added?

To be honest it's never lasted that long but I'm interested to know of others experiences with ageing a back sweetened wine with fruit juice.

I have made 1 Gallon of Strawberry wine which is very bitter, what sort of amount of white grape juice would you say to add?

AllyMelmac said:

I have made 1 Gallon of Strawberry wine which is very bitter, what sort of amount of white grape juice would you say to add?

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See DAZE' comment back one page.

I have used apple/cherry concentrate and regular apple concentrates to backsweeten several fruit wines and aged them to a year and it's just fine.

AJStubbsy said:

If I back sweeten with a grape juice will this affect the life of the wine?

The wine kit I'm using suggests that the wine should be kept for at least 3 months and no longer than 1yr. I'd like to add grape juice to my 20ltr polypin when I transfer the wine from the fermenting vessel. Once opened, the grape juice instructions recommends that the juice is used in a couple of days. I'm guessing this is because the air will start to oxidise the juice, which shouldn't happen in the polypin, but have any of you guys stored wine in excess of 3 months with grape juice added?

To be honest it's never lasted that long but I'm interested to know of others experiences with ageing a back sweetened wine with fruit juice.

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One of the nastiest wines I've made from concentrate is white-grape/raspberry. I made a 5 gal batch of some crap i wouldn't drink through a 40 foot straw! I was going to give it to a buddy for a house warming party (he didn't care about taste, just wanted to get blitzed) but he asked me if after tasting it, if it could be sweetened. Not wanting to waste my good sugar on the enterprise I pulled a can of apple/cherry concentrate from the freeze
and squeezed it in the jug...not a big change, until I poured a second can in. It still needed a little more. Another half can hit the mark just right. Damn this **** was GOOD now!!! We wound up keeping the batch and guzzling it on the canoe trip!

Okay plenty of things to actually back sweeten it with, but how would you actually go about doing it? I assume like Beer you would want to avoid adding oxygen, so would it be best to put sweetener at bottom of another container and syphon cider in to this, test it and repeat as necessary?

Sorry if being muppet but complete noob when it comes to wine and cider, only done Beer in the past.

Bench testing is a time honored method of determining how much sugar you need to add. But before you think about bench testing you need to stabilize the cider by adding K-meta and K-sorbate.
You bench test by pouring three or four glasses of a known quantity of the wine and adding specific quantities of the sugar to each glass. Say you measure 50 CCs of wine and add say 1 g of sugar to the first glass, 2 g to the second 3 to the 3rd. and 4 to the 4th. Let's say that glass 2 is not sweet enough and 3 is too sweet so you then pour another round of glasses and add 2.25 gms to the first 2.5 to the second 2.75 to the third and so on... Let's say that you really like the third glass. So now you know that 2.75 g is what you want to add for every 50 CCs and let's say you made a batch of 5 gallons (or 3.785 L x5 = 18.925 L or 18925 CCs) Divide that by 50 (to get the number of 50 CC units are in the volume of cider you want to sweeten )- and you get 378.5. So you need 2.75 g of the sweetener X 378.5 or 1.040 Kg.

If this was sugar you used then I would dissolve this in some of the cider and add the mix to a bottling bucket filled with cider. As the sugar mix is far more dense than the cider it will tend to fall through the cider (Put it on the bottom and you will need to do a fair amount of work to integrate that sugar equally throughout the 5 gallons. Add it to the top and a few minutes of stirring will nicely evenly spread the sugar throughout.

That is bench testing.

Another technique might be one that you would use if you were less particular about the specifics of the amount of sugar that you preferred and instead you were only interested in making the cider "sweeter".. You might , for example, know that you or those who like your cider prefer the cider when the gravity is say, 1.008. OK. You measure the gravity and it is .996. To raise your cider to 1.008 you need to add enough sugar to raise the gravity 12 points. Again, you MUST stabilize the cider before adding any sugar.

My rule of thumb is that 1 lb of sugar raises the gravity of 1 gallon by 40 points. 1 lb is very loosely 440 g , so 44 g will raise 1 gallon 4 points. 132 g (3 X 44) will raise 1 gallon 12 points and , again, if you had made 5 gallons of cider then to raise the 5 gallons 12 points you would need to add approximately 660 g of sugar (3 X 44 X 5)

The Bench testing technique sounds good especially for this beginner (I was planning on winging it).

If I'm not mistaken K-Meta & K-Sorbate is to kill fermentation and sanitize before bottling, i think??

But if I want this to be a sparkling cider I would need to skip the K-Meta & K-Sorbate and add fermentable and non-fermentable sugar, is that right and would it cause an issues or have I missed something completely?

Thanks for the advice

If you are wanting to natural carb in the bottle then yes, you don't add any chemicals..

maybe i glanced over this in the post here but if i backsweeten a gallon of peach wine with some white grape 100% juice do i need to do anything to stop the juice from fermenting or spoiling it is after all fruit or will the alcohol in the wine preserve it.

Daze said:

keep in mind only way to actually kill the yeast is to pasteurize

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it sounds like the best way of back sweeting; using the concentrate you used pre-ferment.
But do you add pectin enzyme with the (back sweetining) juice?
Do you warm up the juice and add sugar or JUST the juice?

Thank you if you could help me here and :

I've been using a simple syrup to sweeten my fruit wines and cider for years with no problems, the syrup has always integrated into the wine perfectly.

Alleymelmac - If I'm not mistaken K-Meta & K-Sorbate is to kill fermentation and sanitize before bottling, i think??

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Potassium Metabisulfite (Meta) and Potassium Sorbate will not stop an active fermentation, sorbate will prevent any new fermentations, for instance, if you plan on back sweetening after the wine has fermented to dry.
Potassium metabisulfite is used to prevent spoilage and further fermentation by removing oxygen, by removing the oxygen it chokes off micro-organisms and will prevent them from reproducing.
Potassium Sorbate is used to keep wines from starting to ferment again after the fermentation has been completed, it does this by rendering micro-organisms unable to reproduce.

Simple syrup. Water and sugar or what?

I apologize, yes 2 parts sugar to one part water, bring to a boils and let cool before adding.

This idea is so workable for me (seeing as I am a noob). But my question is will the wine begin to ferment again if the juice is added to it? Or is it added only when it is ready to be served?

Pending on the style of wine, you should try using Honey. Yeah, you'll have a slight honey flavor - but it blends well, and lends an extra twist to the wine!

ethalfrida said:

This idea is so workable for me (seeing as I am a noob). But my question is will the wine begin to ferment again if the juice is added to it? Or is it added only when it is ready to be served?

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Yes it will ferment. So the wine should be stabilized properly with sorbate and Camden before sweetening if you want to sweeten it before bottling.

Thank you...