Sweet fruit wines

[rwcat]

So I would like to make my fruit wines a little sweeter how would I go about this? Shorten my fermentation? I use Montrachet yeast for all my fruit wines and usually ferment in primary for two weeks then in secondary for about six weeks before racking off sediment for clearing at bottling I use a sugar syrup for back sweetening I'm just looking for a way to make it a little sweeter.

 

[pumpkinman2012]

It's really hard to stop fermentation unless you start with such a high SG that your yeast cant fully ferment all of the sugars out, this is called a stuck fermentation, it isn't recommended, and can cause all sorts of problems later on.

usually ferment in primary for two weeks then in secondary for about six weeks

I wouldn't use time to gauge when fermentation is complete, you really need to use a hydrometer (yes, I do realize that 8 weeks should easily be plenty of time for fermentation to complete) to be certain that your wine is fermented to dry.
Back sweetening would be my recommendation, just sweeten to the point that your happy, you can also use a yeast such as Lalvin 71B-1118 that brings the fruit forward a little more and metabolizes malic acid making a wine a little bit smoother, also, 8 weeks from fruit to bottle is not a lot of time, the longer you age it the better it will get, I wouldn't consider bottling a fruit wine for a min. of 6 months, depending on the fruit and the ABV%, a year or more.

 

[gratus fermentatio]

You could use standard backsweetening techniques (sulfites, sorbate & sugar syrup) or you could use a nonfermentable sweetener like aspartame, splenda, stevia, xylitol, etc...

You could also use wine conditioner:
http://www.midwestsupplies.com/wine-conditioner-500ml.html
Or you could pasteurize & back sweeten.
Regards, GF.

 

[rwcat]

Thanks to both of you for replying I have to say I didn't consider changing my yeast that will probably be the route I go. And just to clarify a misunderstanding in my original post all wines I make stay in carboys for a minimum of 6 months before bottling and are racked off every 2 months after secondary fermentation.

 

[PTS_35]

I'm a little confused about the aging. Won't the wine continue to age in the bottle? If I wanted to bottle at 3 months then won't it continue to age in bottle??

 

[DoctorCAD]

I'm a little confused about the aging. Won't the wine continue to age in the bottle? If I wanted to bottle at 3 months then won't it continue to age in bottle??

Bottle aging vs. bulk aging is a debate much like synthetic oil vs. dino oil or AR vs. AK or US made vs. foreign made, etc.

There will be no clear winner and everything anybody tells you is purely speculation.

 

[PTS_35]

Ok

 

[bernardsmith]

Bottle aging vs. bulk aging is a debate much like synthetic oil vs. dino oil or AR vs. AK or US made vs. foreign made, etc.

There will be no clear winner and everything anybody tells you is purely speculation.

I tend to agree with you here in part because I have never seen any hard evidence that would even suggest a difference between aging in a 750 cc glass bottle vs a 1 gallon glass or 5 gallon glass carboy, but I do think that there are likely differences when you are talking about a 750 cc bottle compared to say a barrel of wine. The ability of the barrel to allow in micro quantities of O2 and to allow the wine to sit on the wood; even the weight of the volume of the liquid may create differences in the way chemical changes take place over time... so when we talk about "bulk" aging, our "bulk" is not much larger than a wine bottle to begin with...