Banana Wine - OG too high

[scottkct]

Brewed 2gal Banana Wine last week. OG ended up at 22.5brix/1.117sg (oops). Pitched Wine yeast then after about 5 days pitched Champagne yeast.

Just racked it to 2 -1gal jugs and topped off to 1 gallon mark on each with cooled boiled water. Pre-topoff water Sample tested at 13brix/1.010sg which makes approx 14.4abv.

Would adding the water lower the sugar concentration and allow the yeast to metabolize more of the sugar?

My main concern is that I'm not going to completely process all the sugar. It's going to sit for 6+ months so I have time to let it do it's thing.

 

[Yooper]

Brewed 2gal Banana Wine last week. OG ended up at 22.5brix/1.117sg (oops). Pitched Wine yeast then after about 5 days pitched Champagne yeast.

Just racked it to 2 -1gal jugs and topped off to 1 gallon mark on each with cooled boiled water. Pre-topoff water Sample tested at 13brix/1.010sg which makes approx 14.4abv.

Would adding the water lower the sugar concentration and allow the yeast to metabolize more of the sugar?

My main concern is that I'm not going to completely process all the sugar. It's going to sit for 6+ months so I have time to let it do it's thing.

With an OG of 1.114, the absolute highest ABV you can get is 16% (1.114 to .990).

That's pretty high, but if you topped off, you would have lowered that. How much did you top up each gallon? Each time you rack, you'll lose a little and by topping up with water you can probably plan on it being 12.5-13% or so in the end.

 

[scottkct]

Sorry, correction. OG is 1.117sg/28brix (not 22.5 brix)

I didn't measure the volume of what I added. I just topped up to 1 gal marks, maybe .25gal each. I just sampled again and it's now 11.5brix (down from 13brix)

Is brix linear in that if I diluted by 1.5brix I could adjust my OG down by 1.5 from 28 to 26.5brix?

 

[Yooper]

Sorry, correction. OG is 1.117sg/28brix (not 22.5 brix)

I didn't measure the volume of what I added. I just topped up to 1 gal marks, maybe .25gal each. I just sampled again and it's now 11.5brix (down from 13brix)

Is brix linear in that if I diluted by 1.5brix I could adjust my OG down by 1.5 from 28 to 26.5brix?

Is that with a hydrometer, or a refractometer? If it's a refractometer, the readings are invalid for SG once fermentation occurs. If it's a hydrometer, then we could figure out the math. But even diluting it by a quart would change the OG.