How to add alcohol before bottling.

[dstelley]

Hello

I have several different carboys of wine in various stages, but I have 2 I'd like advice with.

First one is a California Muscato from a kit that has cleared up nicely and is ready for bottling. Looks real nice.
It tastes quite good already although I think I'll let it age till fall in the bottles before consuming.
Its weak though. Its right at 8% alcohol, which is what they designed it for, but I'd kind of like to increase to 11% without making radical changes to it.

Has anyone added liquor to wine to up the ante, and if so is there a simple formulae to use? Adding 2-3% shouldn't be too difficult is it?

Second one is a homemade apple cider. It too is aging nicely and is clearing up nicely. I had troubles with it in the beginning getting primary fermentation but after lots of trial and error it seems ok. Its still a wee bit sweet, and also at 8% but there is almost no way I'm going to try and get it fermenting again.

Can sweet wine be mixed with dry wine before bottling? Any advice?

Thanks in advance.

 

[WI_Wino]

Adding brandy to wine is a common way to make port style wines. If you just want to up the ABV w/o adding flavor I think you'll want to use a grain alcohol like Everclear. To figure out how much to add you'll want to use Pearson's Square. It's widely used for mixing any two ingredients. Jack Keller's site has a version where you plug in your values and it spits out what you need to add: http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/blending.asp

I would be careful about adding almost 50% more alcohol to your wine though. I would step it up in 1% increments and taste it each step.

If you want to mix sweet wine and dry wine, I recommend treating the sweet wine with potassium sorbate first, then blending. I would also let the blend bulk age for a little while and verify there is no additional fermentation going on via hydrometer readings.