Apple wine seems very strong! Is something wrong with it?

[Joe1980]

Hello, so I made a strong apple wine using freshly squeezed juice from my own trees. I added quite a lot of additional sugar disolved in a small amount of boiling water. At the time I used campden tablets to kill natural yeast and fermented in primary using a white wine yeast at room temp (around 20c).

Fermentation was done in a week but I left it for about three weeks to settle out and then transferred to demijohns with airlocks.

It then sat in a dark cold room for two years. I transferred to a keg and purged with co2 before chilling it without any pressure.
So that was my whole process.

On tasting the wine it is sweet with good flavour but seems very strong! I drank rwo glasses and felt really woozy. I am rarely unwell from alcohol but this made me feel out lf it.

My wife had a glass and felt unwell.

It seems unusually strong and I wondered whether it could have other alcohol other than ethanol in large amounts? what could be the cause or have I just fermented a particularly strong wine?

thanks for your comments.

 

[Maylar]

What is "quite a lot"? And what size batch?

 

[Joe1980]

What is "quite a lot"? And what size batch?

Batch size was 12L initially filling two 5L demijohns. I put in whatever sugar I had in the cupboard so probably 1.5 -2kg. I don't really remember if im honest. I didnt take a gravity reading or if I did I forgot to write it anywhere.

 

[Maylar]

You're likely in the 13-14% ABV range, and yes that's going to taste like a strong wine. There are alcohols other than ethanol that can be produced by fermentation in poor conditions (too high temperature for instance) called fusels, and they can taste very hot "boozy" and in high concentrations can taste and smell like paint thinner or solvent-like. You'd notice that and the cider wouldn't be drinkable.

 

[Joe1980]

You're likely in the 13-14% ABV range, and yes that's going to taste like a strong wine. There are alcohols other than ethanol that can be produced by fermentation in poor conditions (too high temperature for instance) called fusels, and they can taste very hot "boozy" and in high concentrations can taste and smell like paint thinner or solvent-like. You'd notice that and the cider wouldn't be drinkable.

It is very drinkable and tastes sweet and not at all sharp or dry, the wine yeast had a range up to 21%.
(Gervin GV4 High Alcohol Wine Yeast - For ABVs Of Up To 21% Ferments at ambient room temperature, 15-25c)

I forgot to mention I also added yeast nutrient as per instructions on the tub.

Could it have fermented out fully to this abv which is why it remains sweet? It is like a dessert wine. How would I know if it had fusel alcohol in it? it does taste boozy but not harsh or solvent like.

 

[Maylar]

I figured 14% using US measure (4 lbs of sugar in 3 gallons of juice) and assuming typical cider at 1.050 specific gravity. Not likely that it exceeded 21%, but it is possible that the yeast stopped before that. If that's the case then carbonation won't happen. If it tastes OK, bottle it as is.

 

[Joe1980]

I figured 14% using US measure (4 lbs of sugar in 3 gallons of juice) and assuming typical cider at 1.050 specific gravity. Not likely that it exceeded 21%, but it is possible that the yeast stopped before that. If that's the case then carbonation won't happen. If it tastes OK, bottle it as is.

I am interested to know what could be the cause of making both my wife and I feel unusually woozy. I can easily drink a bottle of normal shop bought wine to myself but a couple of glasses of this made me feel strange and not entirely in a good way.

 

[MaxStout]

You probably ended up with some fusels in your apple wine/prison hooch. A couple glasses could easily make one feel strange in not a good way.