Adding water and sugar to secondary fermentation

[Wrathchild]

I just tried my hand at making wild persimmon wine. Its going very well and I finished primary today and squeezed the pulp in prep for secondary. The recipe i used called for not a full volume during primary, but add water and sugar to secondary fermentation. I started at 1.085 and ended at .990. I got about 3 gallons of wine out of it. I started with about 15lbs of persimmons. I used about 2.5 gallons of water in primary and after transferring I boiled a little over a gallon and added about 4lbs of sugar to that boil. The gravity was high on the wash I added at about 1.150. After transferring and adding the water to my wine, I dropped my tilt into the wine and it read at 1.028. Am I gonna have the fermentation kick back off? Or should I have not done that. 1st time making wine and I have read alot that I shouldn't have added that much sugar. Any thoughts? Am I gonna ferment or just have a sweeter wine?

 

[JimRausch]

Partially depends on the yeast you used, but my guess is that if you didn't stabilize it with metabisluphite and sorbate, by the time you read this , she'll be perking again. Which is OK. Just let her go until (your next) completion, then rack and stabilize.

 

[Tennessee Brew]

I just did the same with a peach wine because I wanted more ABV. No water addition, just sugar. I think I may have to pitch a tad bit of yeast to start this back up. An old wine maker told me you cant really mess anything up by doing this.
He also told me that if the fermentation stalls back out it will as you mentioned, simply be a sweet wine. Sometimes adding water will help the yeast start again as I was also told.

 

[Wrathchild]

I just did the same with a peach wine because I wanted more ABV. No water addition, just sugar. I think I may have to pitch a tad bit of yeast to start this back up. An old wine maker told me you cant really mess anything up by doing this.
He also told me that if the fermentation stalls back out it will as you mentioned, simply be a sweet wine. Sometimes adding water will help the yeast start again as I was also told.

Cool thanks for the reply. I have a tilt hydrometer in the carboy and with my water and sugar addition it brought the wine up to 1.033. No yeast added and its seemed to level out at 1.004. I want a sweeter wine so ill have to taste on the next rack. I suppose I should treat with campden tablets on this next transfer. Its very bubbly so I have a good bit of carbonation. Will that go away with age and airlock? I'm gonna put the wine into 4 one gallon glass carboys with arlocks