HELP: SG to Low

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bpeglowski

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I bought a Wine Expert Riesling Kit and started it on Friday. I did not realize it is a "dry" Riesling. I do not care for really dry wines as much. Is there anything that I can do keep if from becoming to dry? Will it affect the wine in anyway. I had a low starting SG of 1.076. Thanks for the help.
 
use different yeast would change how much sugar ts eating up (dry vs semi-dry etc) but im no expert with wine. Consult with yooperbrew
 
I bought a Wine Expert Riesling Kit and started it on Friday. I did not realize it is a "dry" Riesling. I do not care for really dry wines as much. Is there anything that I can do keep if from becoming to dry? Will it affect the wine in anyway. I had a low starting SG of 1.076. Thanks for the help.

This is actually quite easy.
First let your ferment complete normally. You will have a dry wine.
Then add potassium sulfite (usually sold as Campden tablets) and potassium sorbate. These two chemicals used in combination will prevent renewed fermentation. Check with your kit it is possible that the kit includes these additives, they will be in the stuff you add after fermentation.
Then dissolve some sugar in boiling water (to pasteurize the liquid) and add it to the wine to taste.
After the wine clears bottle as normal. If you by a sweet wine kit this exactly what the F-Packs do.

A good way to determine how much sugar to add to the wine is to measure out several samples of the wine into separate glasses. Add a different amount of sugar to each one and then taste. When you find your favorite ratio, scale up the addition to the batch size and add the appropriate amount. It is best to aim a little dry on your addition as you can always add more sugar but you can't take it out. Yooperbrew claims that after aging in the bottle the wine will seem a little sweeter than it did initially.

Craig
 
This is actually quite easy.
First let your ferment complete normally. You will have a dry wine.
Then add potassium sulfite (usually sold as Campden tablets) and potassium sorbate. These two chemicals used in combination will prevent renewed fermentation. Check with your kit it is possible that the kit includes these additives, they will be in the stuff you add after fermentation.
Then dissolve some sugar in boiling water (to pasteurize the liquid) and add it to the wine to taste.
After the wine clears bottle as normal. If you by a sweet wine kit this exactly what the F-Packs do.

A good way to determine how much sugar to add to the wine is to measure out several samples of the wine into separate glasses. Add a different amount of sugar to each one and then taste. When you find your favorite ratio, scale up the addition to the batch size and add the appropriate amount. It is best to aim a little dry on your addition as you can always add more sugar but you can't take it out. Yooperbrew claims that after aging in the bottle the wine will seem a little sweeter than it did initially.

Craig

I absolutely agree with everything he said. That is precisely how I would stabilize the wine, and I think you'll get a good result.

One note to add. When you find a sample you like while sweetening some of the samples, I suggest taking an SG sample of the one you like the best. Then, sweeten the whole batch to almost that same SG. As CBBaron mentioned, whenever I sweeten wine, I find that it always is just a bit sweeter than I intended. So, if I liked it at 1.010, for example, I would sweeten to 1.008.
 
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