Is there a preferred method to sweetening?

[Grignard]

I make fruit wines. I prefer them slightly sweet. I am trying to determine the best way to sweeten.

Is it preferred to ferment to dryness ensuring fermentation is complete and then back sweeten with a sugar solution?
or
Is it preferred to halt fermentation at the desired SG?


Or is it 6 of one and a half dozen of the other?

The first option seems easier to achieve the desired SG. The second option sound like you would really have to stay on top of the fermentation process with daily checking.

 

[Yooper]

It's almost impossible to successfully stop an active fermentation, and sometimes stressed yeast (and off flavors) result. Not only that, but then bottle bombs happen if the cork doesn't pop out first. Also, the wine wouldn't be clear as the fermentation didn't finish up and then clear- so there would be a ton of sediment in the bottles when it did clear.

It's much more dependable to ferment the wine out, let it clear totally and so that it's no longer dropping any lees at all after at least 60 days, and then stabilize it with sorbate and campden, and then sweeten to taste.

 

[buzzerj]

Do what Yooper says. She knows her stuff. One other thing especially for fruit wines is if you do back sweeten consider using fruit juice instead of a sugar syrup. The natural sugars will blend with the wine better, hence less aging in the bottle. As long as there is enough sugars in the juice or concentrate, you won't have diluted the final wine down too much and added some sugars back so the wine is not too dry. If you like your wine really sweet, you may have to use a sugar syrup but it might be a longer time for the taste to better meld to not taste like wine with sugar.

 

[WilliamSlayer]

I wrote this up for cider but it applies to wine as well. Wait until fermentation is finished and follow these directions.

How to Sussreserve

Rack to a fresh carboy leaving all the settled out yeast and sediment behind.

Add:

1/2 tsp potassium sorbate per gallon.
1/4 - 1/2 tsp TOTAL potassium metabisulfite for the batch.
(This is for a 5-6gal batch.)

Add and stir gently. Give the cider 4-7 days.

Then rack to a fresh carboy and sweeten. If planning on kegging/force carbing, you can rack to the keg instead of a carboy.

This my proven method for Sussreserve.

As to how much to sweeten, that is very subjective. You should pull a sample, taste, and add sweetener slowly to your desired level. Then scale up for the entire batch.

I sweeten with more cider, usually in a ratio close to 1:5 or 1:6 (1 gal cider to 5 gal hard cider).

Its very easy to make a sweet cider... OR a carbonated cider. But a bit tricky to make one that is BOTH. To do that you must sweeten, then artificially carb (force carb), or sweeten with something non-fermentable (like splenda or xylitol), and bottle carb with priming sugar.