Hi. I'm new to making wine. I made some concord wine from grapes (picked from garden two years ago) and just bottled it today. It took 2 years! LOL. It turned really sweet and pretty strong, more like a port wine. This time I'm making plum wine from backyard plums. I do want the wine to be sweet but not too sweet. I did the first fermentation with yeast in the buckets with the fruit but no pits. It sat about 2 weeks. I strained it and put it back into the buckets to ferment some more. I tried the wine at this point and it was NOT sweet at all. It's strong, kind of tart, maybe a bit bitter, not sure. But not at all the plum wine I would have at sushi place or restaurant. So I added more sugar (made syrup first) and added to one carboy just to check how it turns out. I think I added about 4 cups. (At this point I put all wine in three carboys). A week later I racked the wine again and tried the difference with the one with extra sugar. It wasn't any sweeter. Just stronger in alcohol level. So now I'm just going to leave them alone. But I do want to know if there is a way to sweeten it without making it really strong, and how to get it to taste better and not bitter/tart. Does it just need time to sit and ferment all the way? How long? Please help. Thank you.
Plum wine not sweet at all. Help.
- Thread starter Larisa
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Actually, your concord wine that retained it's sweetness is the unusual. Sugars from most fruits are almost completely fermentable leaving you with alcohol and CO2. If you want sweetness, then you have to stabilize and backsweeten. Look up those terms in a forum search and you'll find several techniques.
Actually, your concord wine that retained it's sweetness is the unusual. Sugars from most fruits are almost completely fermentable leaving you with alcohol and CO2. If you want sweetness, then you have to stabilize and backsweeten. Look up those terms in a forum search and you'll find several techniques.
sddingman
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Hi Larissa:
Welcome and congrats on getting your concord to your liking.
Although I am a newbie wine maker too, I might have some suggestions, I have a red plum wine aging right now. The yeast I used really munched up the sugar fast, but seemed to behave once the yeast died. It's on the dry side (like I like them) but . A few questions though:
1. What yeast did you use?
2. What is the sp gravity of your plum wine right now?
3. What size batch are you making? I make 1 gallon batches right now.
Welcome and congrats on getting your concord to your liking.
Although I am a newbie wine maker too, I might have some suggestions, I have a red plum wine aging right now. The yeast I used really munched up the sugar fast, but seemed to behave once the yeast died. It's on the dry side (like I like them) but . A few questions though:
1. What yeast did you use?
2. What is the sp gravity of your plum wine right now?
3. What size batch are you making? I make 1 gallon batches right now.
