Sweetening my first wine

Hello again, everyone! I tried doing a forum search on this first and all I found were beer links so I decided to post something here in the wine forum. Here goes:

I'm brewing my first batch of wine, from a kit, and am getting near to bottling. The last time I racked, I took a hydrometer reading and it showed very little or no sugar left to ferment. I'm not a big fan of really dry wines and wonder if this is going to be too dry.

My question is this, how do I know if I want to sweeten it? Do I just taste it prior to bottling? Also, if I do sweeten, how do I prevent fermentation in the bottle? Is that what the potassium metabisulfate (campden tablets) does? Also, any suggestions as to how to sweeten it - grape juice, sugar, etc.

Thanks again everyone, this forum has already been a wealth of information and I appreciate all the help!!

Well, wait until it's ready to bottle and taste it again. If it's too dry for you, I suggest a simple syrup mixture (sugar and water boiled together) and sweeten your sample to taste. Take the SG of your sample, and then you will want to sweeten the whole batch to just UNDER that SG, so that it is just not quite sweet enough. I've sweetened before to where I like it, but it seems to get sweeter in the bottle. (There are calculators like winecalc online to help you get the right amount of sugar for your batch. Like if you are at .996, and want to go to 1.006, you can enter those numbers, and it'll help you figure how much sugar).

For the whole batch, use 1/2 tsp potassium sorbate per gallon, and 1 campden tablet per gallon, and dissolve in 1/4 cup boiling water. Put that in your receiving vessel, and rack your wine into it. Wait about a week or so, to ensure that fermentation is indeed finished and won't restart, then put your sweetening solution into the bottling bucket, and rack your wine into that, and bottle.

As far as what else you can sweeten with, it really depends on what kind of wine you're making. If you're making apple wine, apple concentrate is nice. What kind of kit do you have?

I have an ECKraus White Zin kit, 6 gals.

I appreciate all the helpful advice! I've been really apprehensive about this part because I don't want to spend all this time making a wine that I won't drink. Your helpfullness has alleviated many of those fears and I am excited about trying it out!

I have a friend who did a white zin kit, and he said that it has a pack of something to add at the end that sweetens it up and kills the yeast. If you have that (sometimes called an f-pack) in your kit, that will take care of it for you. If not, we could figure something else out!

Those kits that come with the F-Packs(sometimes flavored inverted sugar do not include enough sorbate in there to prevent re-fermentation although most get lucky with that) They put sorbate in there to prevent that mixture from fermenting. For back sweetening your wine I suggest using 1/4 tsp of potassium meta and 3 tsp potassium sorbate to stabilize your wine and then use the simple sugar syrup like mentioned above or even a few Welches white grape frozen concentrates and test often to not over do it. Sweetness will be stronger over time when making ne and oak will fade over time.

I have no "f kit" so I'll have to figure something out. What does the potassium meta do for the wine then? Is it a clearing agent? I'll have to find some potassium sorbate.

Thanks Again everyone!!

The K-meta is a sulfite- it comes in a powder or in tablets called campden tablets. It works as an antioxidant as well as a preservative in the finished wine. In fermenting wines, it has antiseptic properties and prevents wild yeast/bacteria contamination.