Concord wine question and what I just did

[sTango]

So, I made about 4 gallons of concord wine last year. Steps were as follows:

1. Picked and washed the grapes
2. layered them with sugar in a bucket
3. topped with water
4. let ferment for 3 months
5. racked for 6 months
6. bottled

you'll notice there are no measurements or gravity readings. what the hell was I thinking? lol...i have no idea.

then we bought a bottle of concord wine and taste compared ours to it.

ours was much fruitier and sweeter.

my wife didnt like it (too sweet) but i liked it so we kept it bottled for about 6 months.

now, being a more brave brewer than I was then I decided to open a bottle and get a gravity reading and WOW it was 1.040.

so I decided to make it drier mostly because I want my wife to enjoy it too. I like it like it is. maybe im just weird.

I opened all 12 bottles left and poured them into a carboy. I added a packet of Montrachet yeast yesterday.

So, what I believe will happen is that it will begin fermenting at some point and slowly get drier. I dont know what the abv is now, but I can tell you that it is already pretty strong.

i figuire if it doesnt ferment out much drier because of the current abv then can i water it down, or will that ruin it?

 

[Yooper]

Well, if you already have a ver high ABV, it won't ferment down any more. Still, it might go again if you didn't stabilize it before. If you water it down, it will taste watered down. If you like it, though, that's great!

You could make some Welch's Concord Grape wine, but don't add extra sugar to it (it only takes about 30 days) and mix them. That might be easiest!

 

[sirsloop]

I've never been a big fan of concord grape wine... give me Vincent or give me death! HAHHA!

 

[sTango]

Well, if you already have a ver high ABV, it won't ferment down any more. Still, it might go again if you didn't stabilize it before. If you water it down, it will taste watered down. If you like it, though, that's great!

I looked at it this morning and there is the telltale ring of bubbly foam on the top a couple of inches from the glass which leads me to believe that something is happening.

If it doesnt ferment anymore, I can just wait for the yeast to drop back out
and then re-rack and bottle, correct?

 

[Yooper]

Yes, you could rebottle. However, this time I'd use some stabilizer just because you don't want it to start refermenting in the bottle.

 

[WOP31]

You could try adding beano, that will break down any sugars and ferment it out the rest of the way. but it will completly ferment out, so you may need to go and back sweeten it. I had a concord that started out at 1.090 and fermented out to a .998, talk about dry. i picked up a bottle of grape extract from the local winery/HBS (16oz i think) and used that and a 1/2 pound of sugar to back sweeten 4.5 gallons after i stabilized it. It came out good but a little too sweet for me, next time i would not use the 1/2 lb of sugar just the grape concentrate.


Cheers

 

[sTango]

You could try adding beano, that will break down any sugars and ferment it out the rest of the way. but it will completly ferment out, so you may need to go and back sweeten it. I had a concord that started out at 1.090 and fermented out to a .998, talk about dry. i picked up a bottle of grape extract from the local winery/HBS (16oz i think) and used that and a 1/2 pound of sugar to back sweeten 4.5 gallons after i stabilized it. It came out good but a little too sweet for me, next time i would not use the 1/2 lb of sugar just the grape concentrate.

Cool. Thanks for the info. I think I am gonna let it go for a couple of weeks and then test it. If it hasnt moved I may do that.

 

[Yooper]

Well, I'm no chemist, but I don't think Beano would help you here at all. The sugars you have are fructose and sucrose and are fermentable. Beano (Alpha Galactosidase Enzyme) breaks down complex carbs, and you don't have any in the wine. I think that would be a big mistake.

Hopefully, fermentation has restarted and will finish up without any more problems.