Too much sugar?

[cottonwoodks]

Since all my cider is well into its fermentation, and it's a whole another year before apple season again, I thought I'd try some wine, but I guess I didn't really follow the recipe as far as sugar goes. I was going for blueberry and raspberry with frozen berries, and was thinking I had enough fruit for two gallons instead of just one, so I ended up putting (I think) WAY too much sugar in, like 10 cups for the 5 pounds of fruit, along with the (presumably) proper amounts of acid blend and yeast nutrients. I used Lalvin 71B yeast, mainly because that's what I had on hand.

I didn't take a specific gravity reading, at the beginning, because there were so many berries bobbling around, but after fermenting rather vigorously for 6 days, I racked it into 2 gallon jugs. The specific gravity is 1.062 and it smells REALLY boozy. Was that way too much sugar? Is it going to shut down the yeast because the alcohol level is too high? Is it going to end up sickenly sweet? Is there anything I can do now to fix that? I did add a pint of water to each jug, because what I had started didn't fill up the gallons all the way, but should I add more water? Do I need to add some other kind of yeast?

 

[Francis Eric]

What I would do is make a tea something like green tea maybe maybe a black berry etc
or maybe a apple tea use that to dilute it without diluting the flavors.

10 cups in plain water for 2 gallons
2 cups in plain water or a pound which is 2 cups
that is a SG of 1.045 in plain water (without the apples)

I am thinking a hawthorn fruit flavored tea might be good
or quince as well .

Cranberry might over power the flavors
have any wild crab apples around they have good acidic potent flavors
(make great tea the marble size ones frozen first to break them down)

I would make a gallon, and dillute half, and half, tea, and Must and see what your SG is after.
well not exactly I'd do it in a measuring cup first

Half cup Must (1.060) half cup water see what the number say
Yes I have done this sort of thing before hahaha
decided to make wine drunk after not doing it for a number of years.
(also boiled the sugar ,and added to cold water (It turned back to sugar)
what a long day
So do not feel bad.

 

[Francis Eric]

I meant 2 cups of sugar per gallon of coarse is a Sg of 1.045 (or close to)
and it is also a LB of sugar,

 

[Francis Eric]

oops I thouhght you said Cider
it has been a very bad few hours for me

Some good tea's should blend with raspberry ,
but the Blue berry I think is not that great of a wine in my opinion
but I like dry wine ,

Are these separate or mixed if separate
I'd add more blueberry tea (make sure it has acidity (mine was not very exciting)
some added tannin might be good

this could be a good thing
you could have 4 different wines
Raspberry
Blueberry -- dilute blueberry tea
Blueberry -- dilute green tea
etc. blue berry (anything even some thing very odd sounding like banana or tamarind ,
but tamarind probably over power the blueberry maybe even a dilluted orange tea )(tazo tea )

 

[bernardsmith]

Two lbs of sugar dissolved in water to make 1 gallon (US) will raise the gravity by about 90 points. I have no idea the weight of sugar in a "cup". It's not really a useful standard measurement in winemaking, thought it may be for following a recipe when you cook at home. Finely ground sugar is going to weigh more per cup than coarse sugar in that same "volume".

 

[Francis Eric]

I meant one pound 2 cups of sugar
I said raised it 1.045

I do not see why not if your planning on making a ton of wine or even small batches
you should know how many 25 Lb bags to buy from costco or whatever .

or 5 or 10 pound bags so you have enough
a measuring cup helps with the guess work.
(or how many pounds you need to add so it is faster in bigger batches )

 

[Francis Eric]

I see what your saying , but they brought up 10 cups of sugar

Different ways of doing it

for a small batch I do not see the problem
I make a mistake myself I was drunk vinting wine
thinking not one pound but 2 (got the cups , and pounds mixxed up)

 

[cottonwoodks]

oops I thouhght you said Cider
it has been a very bad few hours for me

Some good tea's should blend with raspberry ,
but the Blue berry I think is not that great of a wine in my opinion
but I like dry wine ,

Are these separate or mixed if separate
I'd add more blueberry tea (make sure it has acidity (mine was not very exciting)
some added tannin might be good

this could be a good thing
you could have 4 different wines
Raspberry
Blueberry -- dilute blueberry tea
Blueberry -- dilute green tea
etc. blue berry (anything even some thing very odd sounding like banana or tamarind ,
but tamarind probably over power the blueberry maybe even a dilluted orange tea )(tazo tea )

So...you're suggesting that I dilute the wine with tea? I think this is a GREAT idea, and I'm going to give it a shot. So instead of 2 gallons that are way too strong, 4 gallons that aren't?

 

[cottonwoodks]

Two lbs of sugar dissolved in water to make 1 gallon (US) will raise the gravity by about 90 points. I have no idea the weight of sugar in a "cup". It's not really a useful standard measurement in winemaking, thought it may be for following a recipe when you cook at home. Finely ground sugar is going to weigh more per cup than coarse sugar in that same "volume".

Yeah, I know I should be weighing it. I just didn't have a scale around at the time, and I looked up weight of cups of sugar (and I think the conversion for standard white sugar was 2.5 cups/pound, which is what I used. But I'll weigh it for sure next time. Hell, I'll weigh it right now and see what I actually put in.

 

[cottonwoodks]

So...this sugar is 2.25 cups/pound. Since I added 10 cups, that makes 4.5 pounds (in addition to whatever sugars were in the fruit) in what was a little over a quart less than two gallons. The recipe called for 2 pounds/gallon. So that was about 2.25 pounds/gallon, which is about 100 points if they were full gallons (so a bit more than 2.25 pounds/gallon). So....maybe not too much? The Lalvin 71B says it's supposed to be good up through 18% ABV (not that I want that much).

 

[Francis Eric]

How many gallons
this isn't 2 gallons you made
that is what I thought

 

[Francis Eric]

Usually when I do a fruit recipe
just the fruit alone is 1.045 or %6

I see this is common at least in my experience
maybe not for raspberries , but not sure to tell the truth about raspberries.

Wouldn't hurt to do a small trial in a measuring cup dilute with tea water
and see what the Sg comes out to
(1/4 cup must 1/4 tea or lesser amounts)
see what reading you get after
you can top up with it (but you said you did already)

see next post

 

[_BullDog_]

Are you sure the SG sample didn’t have a lot of CO2 in solution?

 

[Francis Eric]

More funny, but Good you didn't have to do what I did,
and clean out a 3 gallon Italian vase to dilute wine
Just because you were drunk measuring sugar wrong.

also like I said added boiling sugar water in cold water in carboy
(turned back to sugar water in carboy long brew day
not fun when your not being able to see straight thinking your almost finished,and sugar water is hot )

 

[cottonwoodks]

Are you sure the SG sample didn’t have a lot of CO2 in solution?

Uh...no, not sure at all. I don't know anything about this. How do you check for that? Stir it around in the sample beaker until no more bubbles come out?

And now I'm wondering about ALL my SG readings (they've all been from cider). How big of an issue is this?

 

[_BullDog_]

Not sure how big of an issue but no it can be from time to time

 

[bernardsmith]

Here's the thing, by calculation you can determine the SG given the weight of sugar you added/gallon of water. If you used a small amount of fruit and we assume (again, by calculation) that the juice expressed from the fruit is likely to be around 1.040- 1050 per gallon of juice (of juice) but you used almost 2 gallons of water and still had around 2 gallons of must then you could more or less discount the sugar in the fruit. Bottom line: whether or not there is CO2 in the wine (which would suggest that there was less sugar in the wine than there was) a good approximation would be the sugar you added. If , however, you were treating the fruit much like wine grapes and adding no water or virtually no water then you could assume that there is another pound or so of sugar per gallon from the fruit.

 

[cottonwoodks]

Here's the thing, by calculation you can determine the SG given the weight of sugar you added/gallon of water. If you used a small amount of fruit and we assume (again, by calculation) that the juice expressed from the fruit is likely to be around 1.040- 1050 per gallon of juice (of juice) but you used almost 2 gallons of water and still had around 2 gallons of must then you could more or less discount the sugar in the fruit. Bottom line: whether or not there is CO2 in the wine (which would suggest that there was less sugar in the wine than there was) a good approximation would be the sugar you added. If , however, you were treating the fruit much like wine grapes and adding no water or virtually no water then you could assume that there is another pound or so of sugar per gallon from the fruit.

Thanks. This is helpful. For this batch, I'd say it was mostly the water. Not all that much juice from the fruit. It's bubbling away in secondary right now, so we'll see how it goes.....

 

[Francis Eric]

Since all my cider is well into its fermentation, and it's a whole another year before apple season again, I thought I'd try some wine, but I guess I didn't really follow the recipe as far as sugar goes. I was going for blueberry and raspberry with frozen berries, and was thinking I had enough fruit for two gallons instead of just one, so I ended up putting (I think) WAY too much sugar in, like 10 cups for the 5 pounds of fruit, along with the (presumably) proper amounts of acid blend and yeast nutrients. I used Lalvin 71B yeast, mainly because that's what I had on hand.

I didn't take a specific gravity reading, at the beginning, because there were so many berries bobbling around, but after fermenting rather vigorously for 6 days, I racked it into 2 gallon jugs. The specific gravity is 1.062 and it smells REALLY boozy. Was that way too much sugar? Is it going to shut down the yeast because the alcohol level is too high? Is it going to end up sickenly sweet? Is there anything I can do now to fix that? I did add a pint of water to each jug, because what I had started didn't fill up the gallons all the way, but should I add more water? Do I need to add some other kind of yeast?

sounds to watered down of flavor , and added a pint of h2o
alcohol Numbs the Taste higher alcohol less flavor

Do you plan to age or just drink up
Do you plan to sweeten ?
If you want to age may need to add tannin or black tea bags or did you?

Funny thing about my statement of it being to watered down
I made a persimmon wine
So with the left over batch Made a second batch
The second batch watered down I actually liked better
yes thin, but a subtle flavor I quite liked it actually

 

[cottonwoodks]

sounds to watered down of flavor , and added a pint of h2o
alcohol Numbs the Taste higher alcohol less flavor

Do you plan to age or just drink up
Do you plan to sweeten ?
If you want to age may need to add tannin or black tea bags or did you?

Funny thing about my statement of it being to watered down
I made a persimmon wine
So with the left over batch Made a second batch
The second batch watered down I actually liked better
yes thin, but a subtle flavor I quite liked it actually

I plan to age it. I did add tannin, as the recipe called for it. It's bubbling away in secondary, so we'll see what happens.

 

[TheBluePhantom]

Just to throw in some more of the math. since the fruit only weighed 5 lbs, it would only have been about a half gallon at maybe 1.050. so 25 points split between two gallons is only another 12 points. 1.112 fermented to dry would be somewhere about 15 or 16%. Let it go, blend it later if it is too much.

 

[cottonwoodks]

Just to throw in some more of the math. since the fruit only weighed 5 lbs, it would only have been about a half gallon at maybe 1.050. so 25 points split between two gallons is only another 12 points. 1.112 fermented to dry would be somewhere about 15 or 16%. Let it go, blend it later if it is too much.

Cool, thanks! That's a very helpful suggestion.

 

[Francis Eric]

I am rusty , but 8 pints in a gallon
He added a pint so how much less sugar?
then 1.112 if you dilute with a pint h2o in must of a gallon.