Hydrometer question?

I'll try not to make this sound too messed up....I made some blackberry wine and started it 5 days ago. I added my berries, sugar ect. everything but the yeast. I realized my brew bucket was too small and did not add all the water the recipe called for, thinking when I pulled out the fruit bag I would have more room and add more water then. I took a hydro for an OG of 1.15 then added my yeast.

Tonight I took out the berry bag and had 5 1/2 gallons of liquid. As its been fermenting, the hydro was 1.016. I added an additional 1/2 gallon of water to the fermenter and took another hydro at 1.014.

My question is "and maybe I'm thinking too much here" should't it make a difference at what stage you take a hydro reading to predict final alcohol as I added more water? What I'm getting at is, if I added the same 1/2 gallon of water in the begining when my OG was 1.15 wouldn't it have dropped more then .002 points? It seems to me that the higher it is, the more room it has to fall? In other words, if you added 1 gallon water to 5 gallons thats at lets say 1.090, it would drop more points then the same 5 gallons fermented down to lets say 1.010 if you added an additional gallon of water? I was attempting to calculate my drop in alcohol by taking the two hydro readings but I'm thinking this isn't correct because the lowever it goes, the less room it has to move. Is it possible to calculate this?

The hydrometer measures the density of the liquid. As the yeast consumes the fermentables and converts them to alcohol, the liquid becomes less dense. If you want a six gallon batch and you added 1/2 gallon to achieve that level then the hydrometer reading is an indication of the density of that six gallen batch.

I would say don't worry about it. When you reach your target final gravity it will be ready to stablize and start aging.

I'm aware of what the hydrometer does, I'm wondering if my logic is correct or not.

I'm sure there is a way to correctly calculate what the OG should have been, since you know the OG and the SG of water. What that formula would be though, I have no idea.

sometime(always in my opinion) the alcohol content is less important than final taste. Blackberries can be pretty heavy so a little water wont hurt. Add a little sugar too into secondary if you want to take the alcohol alittle higher too

yeastluvr said:

I'm aware of what the hydrometer does, I'm wondering if my logic is correct or not.

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As Texron said, it only measures the density. You have to calculate the dilution ratio out yourself, or use some free software like winecalc to help you figure out what the actual OG would be.

Adding 1/2 gallon of water to a batch that was 1.150 (from 5.5 gallons to 6 gallons) would give you an actual OG of 1.138. It would dilute it a bit, changing the ABV by about 1.5%.

That's a very high OG for a berry wine.
The yeast should poop out before it gets dry, leaving you with a sweet but "hot" wine. I rarely go over 1.090 for fruit wines.

Thanks Yoop....thats what I was looking for. Ya, I thought it was a little high myself. I tasted it today, it wasn't as sweet as a thought, but definitely on the "hot" side.

Crap.....my bad....my initial hydro was not a 1.15 it was a 1.105.

One fact about hydrometers is they are measuring the volume displaced, not the actual density. This is a bit esoteric but it means that the higher the reading gets the more inaccurate they get. Once you get over about 1.090 they are starting to seriously underestimate the amount of sugar in the solution, so you would get different readings by diluting at a lower OG.

YooperBrew said:

That's a very high OG for a berry wine.
The yeast should poop out before it gets dry, leaving you with a sweet but "hot" wine. I rarely go over 1.090 for fruit wines.

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I generally have from 1090 to 1110 for my blueberry wines and using EC-1118 yeast gets my gravity down to 990 to 995 when it is finished. I have to add sweetner to bring up the sweetness level I look for as I don't halt my gravity when it reaches my target gravity.

yeastluvr said:

Thanks Yoop....thats what I was looking for. Ya, I thought it was a little high myself. I tasted it today, it wasn't as sweet as a thought, but definitely on the "hot" side.

Crap.....my bad....my initial hydro was not a 1.15 it was a 1.105.

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1.105 is much better! If you added 1/2 gallon of water, that would be about 1.095 or so.

As BooBoo said, you can go higher. I have with other wines, but I don't like to with berry wines. I have a blackberry wine from 2006 is that still pretty "hot" because I started it at about 1.110 or so. At about 15% ABV, it will take a while for that to age out. My perference is to keep fruit wines (except for chokecherry which I oak) to around 12.5% ABV. That's high enough to help preserve the wine, but not be "hot" and overpower the fruit.

One thing to keep in mind is that you will need to top up when you rack to the next carboy. I like to rack to a carboy, and keep any extra in a wine bottle with a stopper and airlock. (They make small stoppers that fit wine bottles, beer bottles, etc). Each time when I rack, I use the leftover wine in the spare bottle for topping up so I don't keep adding water. If you plan on topping up with water, that will dilute the wine a bit.

Ok....that alcohol level is a little more manageable. I ended up with an extra 1 gallon jug and a wine bottle for topping off, however, the wine bottle is mostly sediment, so I do have a gallon jug for topping. I've never made blackberry wine, but this stuff looks like it will have a ton of sediment come racking time so I'm glad I have the extra to top off.