Kit Wine Tweaks

My wife and I recently started making wine using kits. I've noticed when researching kits nearly all of them make a very dry wine. I've read that one can tweak the amount of sweetness (dryness) by adding sweetner after terminating the fermentation.

What type of sweetner (corn sugar, cane sugar, etc) should be used and how does one determine the amount to use?

Thanks

After your kit is finished, you should be adding some packages at the end with sorbate in it. If you've added sorbate and sulfite, then you can sweeten after a few days.

You can sweeten with whatever you'd like- juice, honey, sugar, etc. If you use sugar, I find that it's more convenient to dissolve sugar in some boiling water before adding to the wine.

As far as amounts, there are a couple of ways to decide this. One is to simply pull out a sample and sweeten it to taste. Then, take the SG of that sample and sweeten the entire batch to almost the same SG. What I mean by that is this- it seems to get just a bit sweeter in the bottle after a short while. So, say you like it at 1.010. I'd sweeten it to 1.008.

There is a program I found online (free) called winecalc that can help you decide on exactly how much sugar to add. You type in the current SG (say .990) and the desired SG (say, 1.008). It'll tell you that you need to add 40 ounces of sugar by weight to 6 gallons of wine to do that.

That's a great piece of software. I was trying to figure out the math for bumping the SG of a must from 1.065 to 1.080 for targeted ABV.

Thanks!

Oh, and I just remembered something about kits! My best friend likes what I call "girly wines"- and she LOVES the Island Mist wine kits. They make a wine more like a wine cooler- sweetened and light and similar to those "Arbor Mist" wines with berry and other fruit. She loves one called "Mango Symphony" or something like that, and I gave her one called "Kiwi Pear Sauvignon Blanc" for a wedding present. I've sampled those, and they are very good if you like sweetened wine.

I prefer kits that make dry red wines for my own table use, but I do recommend the Island Mist kits for those who want non-dry wines. Also, the Island Mist kits are usually under $60- which is less than $2 a bottle!

You could also play around with:
1) The yeast - use a different one than is in the kit, one that does not attenuate as much (ie that stops working before all the sugar is gone)
2) Add sugar at the beginning just above the working alcohol tolerance of your yeast - ie. like doing #1 but now instead of changing the yeast you change the sugar content of the must and even your high attenuating strain leaves some behind(this will lead to a more alcoholic wine, usually safer with a red than a white)

Good stuff. Thanks guys....

Hi Sudz:
I am a beginner and something that I do is when I try a commercial wine that I like, I'll take a sg reading and write it down. We like White Zinfandael, but not all of them. So I took a sg on what I like and now I know how sweet I'll be making a white zin when I get the kit. You can do this for a variety of wines and get an idea of what numbers you like best.

have fun!

toularat said:

Hi Sudz:
I am a beginner and something that I do is when I try a commercial wine that I like, I'll take a sg reading and write it down. We like White Zinfandael, but not all of them. So I took a sg on what I like and now I know how sweet I'll be making a white zin when I get the kit. You can do this for a variety of wines and get an idea of what numbers you like best.

have fun!

Click to expand...

Thanks, Good idea....

I love taking Island Mist kits and adding 5lbs of sugar

They also sell small bottles of non fermetable sweeteners at all the wine sites. I think they call it wine conditioner and you dont need a whole lot from what I'm told. I like mine bone dry though so I am not speaking from experience, Ken