Strong Alcohol wines? Why?

Good Luck, Rog

Hello, I'm new to this group and to winemaking so I'm full of questions. We started making wine this spring and just like we do everything we jumped in head first. Now I have 3 batches of wine about 6 gallons each that are not turning out very well at this point. We have a Strawberry, Sweet Cherrie, and a Black Raspberry wine. They are all at different stages in the process but have similar characteristics. They all seem to have a strong alcohol oder and taste to them. We went by the recipe that came with our kit and all of them tested around 1.09 Brix or 12% potential alcohol after mixing them and before fermentation. Now, Several months later and dry when I test them using a Vinometer I get very high results. The Strawberry appears to drop off about 25% but I think that is somehow inaccurate. The Cherrie is running around 20 - 22%! and the Raspberry is around 18%. I'm not sure of my accuracy since I am new to all of this. We tried playing with some samples and cutting it with water. Unfortunaly that also cuts the taste just as much and we end up with better alcohol content but a flavored water taste. Is there any way that I can cut back the alcohol taste and or content and save the flavor? If not is there a way I can keep this from happening with the next batch we try? The next batch we intend to try is going to be Watermelon. Since this will probably have a week flavor to begin with we are going to cut the sugar way back to start with. Any recommendations for yeast? Any ideas?

Thanks it advance, Tom

from the "Wine Dictionary" at epicurious.com

vinometer: A simple calibrated instrument used to measure the alcoholic content of finished dry wines. A vinometer isn't accurate for sweet wines.

So the vinometer is useless to you because you don't have a "finished dry wine" which is the only kind that a vinometer can give any kind of meaningful measurement with.

Based on your recipe, I can pretty much guarantee that you're not getting >25% -- more like 12-13% No possible way that the strawberries are adding it -- they'd have to be 50% sugar by weight.

I think you're vinometer must not be giving usable readings. Or the only other thing I can think of is that you only added 7 cups of water instead of 7 pints, so everything was twice as concentrated as it should be. However, no wine yeast I know of will ferment past 17 or

Cheers, Richard

Hello, I'm new to this group and to winemaking so I'm full of questions. We started making wine this spring and just like we do everything we jumped in head first. Now I have 3 batches of wine about 6 gallons each that are not turning out very well at this point. We have a Strawberry, Sweet Cherrie, and a Black Raspberry wine. They are all at different stages in the process but have similar characteristics. They all seem to have a strong alcohol oder and taste to them. We went by the recipe that came with our kit and all of them tested around 1.09 Brix or 12% potential alcohol after mixing them and before fermentation. Now, Several months later and dry when I test them using a Vinometer I get very high results. The Strawberry appears to drop off about 25% but I think that is somehow inaccurate. The Cherrie is running around 20 - 22%! and the Raspberry is around 18%. I'm not sure of my accuracy since I am new to all of this. We tried playing with some samples and cutting it with water. Unfortunaly that also cuts the taste just as much and we end up with better alcohol content but a flavored water taste. Is there any way that I can cut back the alcohol taste and or content and save the flavor? If not is there a way I can keep this from happening with the next batch we try? The next batch we intend to try is going to be Watermelon. Since this will probably have a week flavor to begin with we are going to cut the sugar way back to start with. Any recommendations for yeast? Any ideas?

Thanks it advance, Tom

Hello, I'm new to this group and to winemaking so I'm full of questions. We started making wine this spring and just like we do everything we jumped in head first. Now I have 3 batches of wine about 6 gallons each that are not turning out very well at this point. We have a Strawberry, Sweet Cherrie, and a Black Raspberry wine. They are all at different stages in the process but have similar characteristics. They all seem to have a strong alcohol oder and taste to them. We went by the recipe that came with our kit and all of them tested around 1.09 Brix or 12% potential alcohol after mixing them and before fermentation. Now, Several months later and dry when I test them using a Vinometer I get very high results. The Strawberry appears to drop off about 25% but I think that is somehow inaccurate. The Cherrie is running around 20 - 22%! and the Raspberry is around 18%. I'm not sure of my accuracy since I am new to all of this. We tried playing with some samples and cutting it with water. Unfortunaly that also cuts the taste just as much and we end up with better alcohol content but a flavored water taste. Is there any way that I can cut back the alcohol taste and or content and save the flavor? If not is there a way I can keep this from happening with the next batch we try? The next batch we intend to try is going to be Watermelon. Since this will probably have a week flavor to begin with we are going to cut the sugar way back to start with. Any recommendations for yeast? Any ideas?

Thanks it advance, Tom

Hello, I'm new to this group and to winemaking so I'm full of questions. We started making wine this spring and just like we do everything we jumped in head first. Now I have 3 batches of wine about 6 gallons each that are not turning out very well at this point. We have a Strawberry, Sweet Cherrie, and a Black Raspberry wine. They are all at different stages in the process but have similar characteristics. They all seem to have a strong alcohol oder and taste to them. We went by the recipe that came with our kit and all of them tested around 1.09 Brix or 12% potential alcohol after mixing them and before fermentation. Now, Several months later and dry when I test them using a Vinometer I get very high results. The Strawberry appears to drop off about 25% but I think that is somehow inaccurate. The Cherrie is running around 20 - 22%! and the Raspberry is around 18%. I'm not sure of my accuracy since I am new to all of this. We tried playing with some samples and cutting it with water. Unfortunaly that also cuts the taste just as much and we end up with better alcohol content but a flavored water taste. Is there any way that I can cut back the alcohol taste and or content and save the flavor? If not is there a way I can keep this from happening with the next batch we try? The next batch we intend to try is going to be Watermelon. Since this will probably have a week flavor to begin with we are going to cut the sugar way back to start with. Any recommendations for yeast? Any ideas?

Thanks it advance, Tom

Hello, I'm new to this group and to winemaking so I'm full of questions. We started making wine this spring and just like we do everything we jumped in head first. Now I have 3 batches of wine about 6 gallons each that are not turning out very well at this point. We have a Strawberry, Sweet Cherrie, and a Black Raspberry wine. They are all at different stages in the process but have similar characteristics. They all seem to have a strong alcohol oder and taste to them. We went by the recipe that came with our kit and all of them tested around 1.09 Brix or 12% potential alcohol after mixing them and before fermentation. Now, Several months later and dry when I test them using a Vinometer I get very high results. The Strawberry appears to drop off about 25% but I think that is somehow inaccurate. The Cherrie is running around 20 - 22%! and the Raspberry is around 18%. I'm not sure of my accuracy since I am new to all of this. We tried playing with some samples and cutting it with water. Unfortunaly that also cuts the taste just as much and we end up with better alcohol content but a flavored water taste. Is there any way that I can cut back the alcohol taste and or content and save the flavor? If not is there a way I can keep this from happening with the next batch we try? The next batch we intend to try is going to be Watermelon. Since this will probably have a week flavor to begin with we are going to cut the sugar way back to start with. Any recommendations for yeast? Any ideas?

Thanks it advance, Tom