Dosage

[GorillaFly]

Hello everyone I'm new to this site but not too new for making wine. I make wine from apples because I live near orchards. So to get to the point what I do is I ferment the juice with added cane sugar to boost my ABV to 13.5% I also add raisins for nutrient and I fermented out completely. My question is I want to make it in bottle fermentation carbonation but I don't know exactly what my dosage would be per 5 gallons of 13.5% apple wine completely fermented out. What would be my wine/ sugar/ yeast /dosage be? In the amounts. I've been hunting the net forever and I haven't found one that really works for me. Thank you so much for your time and hello from South Philadelphia.
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1459268410.623627.jpg

 

[lukebuz]

long story short:

Add 1.0oz for 2.5 Volumes per Gallon if fermented dry (4.5 pts)
Add 1.2oz for 3.0 Volumes per Gallon if fermented dry (5.5 pts)
Add 1.6oz for 4.0 Volumes per Gallon if fermented dry (7.3 pts)

2 volumes is pretty flat...6 volumes is very very carb'ed. Aim for 3-4.

 

[Yooper]

long story short:

Add 1.0oz for 2.5 Volumes per Gallon if fermented dry (4.5 pts)
Add 1.2oz for 3.0 Volumes per Gallon if fermented dry (5.5 pts)
Add 1.6oz for 4.0 Volumes per Gallon if fermented dry (7.3 pts)

2 volumes is pretty flat...6 volumes is very very carb'ed. Aim for 3-4.

But...............

if the wine is already 13.5%, adding more fermentables may not do a darn thing if you're near the alcohol tolerance of the yeast. There is a lot of assumption with the calculations, mostly being that the alcohol level is far less than 13.5%..........................

 

[pumpkinman2012]

Just a side note, if you're making a sparkling cider and bottle conditioning, make sure to use champagne bottles, regular wine bottles can explode under pressure.
Zac Brown came up with a really neat way of making sparkling wine in 2-3 weeks.
I've used this method in the past, and I'm using it now to make a case of sparkling hard cider.
With this method, you add 1 gram of the encapsulated yeast, you put it inside the plastic champagne stopper and hold it there with stainless pipe screens, you then add your simple syrup to sweeten the cider or wine, every day I give the bottles a good shake, in 2 weeks I pop a bottle open to test the carbonation level.
The beauty of this is that if the wine is fully carbonated, you replace the cork with a new one, therefor removing the yeast and stopping the wine from any further carbonation.
I've found that 16 grams of sugar per bottle gives me a decent carbonation and enough residual sugar to be lightly sweetened. I've also experimented with 16 grams of sugar and 2 packets of Splenda as per Zac, Spenda is a unfermentable sweetener.

I hope this helps.

 

[lukebuz]

Yes, true. I guess I've always pitched Premiere Cuvee yeast. I ferment on Cotes des Blancs, and repitched dosage with a small yeast starter.

 

[GorillaFly]

Thank you so much guys for your responses. Although I am still a little confused. So let me ask the question this way. I have a 5 gallon carboy full of apple wine that is 13.5% ABV. I want to bottle that. what I need to add is a little yeast and a little sugar into the bottles when bottling in order to create the proper carbonation. So far I have been missing the mark either too carbonated or not carbonated enough and I'm banging my head against the wall . Joking. Does that make more sense? how much sugar and or yeast should go in the champagne bottle? Thank you once again I really dig this site cheers.

 

[lukebuz]

My first post says it all. What's the problem?

 

[GorillaFly]

Add (what in) oz... What are points? I'm just looking for the equation of sugar to yeast to get the carbonation for a 5 gallon carboy. Some say just add priming sugar but my batch is fermented out so there isn't any left over yeast so I guess I add more. The French call this a dosage. There is a dosage de triage and a dosage de expedition. I just need the dosage de triage.

 

[Yooper]

Add (what in) oz... What are points? I'm just looking for the equation of sugar to yeast to get the carbonation for a 5 gallon carboy. Some say just add priming sugar but my batch is fermented out so there isn't any left over yeast so I guess I add more. The French call this a dosage. There is a dosage de triage and a dosage de expedition. I just need the dosage de triage.

The issue is that if your wine is already at 13.5%, it may be very difficult to get carbonation. Even adding yeast is not likely to help, as adding yeast to an alcohol environment generally means the yeast will die, instead of "work". You can push some fermentations higher than 13%, but that's because the yeast acclimates to the higher alcohol environment gradually. Just adding yeast now may mean death for the yeast, or at least stress them. The original yeast didn't go anywhere- they are still there, but they may be spent or at their alcohol tolerance- unless you sterile filtered it.

The carb level you desire will be what determines the amount of priming sugar you use- for many, that's about 1 ounce per gallon, but it could be quite a bit more for champagne level carbonation.