advice on accuracy of recipe

Julie, Understandable. I've found that most recipes are general guidelines, and the fruit (among other things)you use can affect your outcome. A couple of things you could do. After you rack, you could pour all the pulp into a container, cover tightly, and refrigerate - if there is any good wine it should float to the top and the lees will fall to the bottom, so you might get a bit more to top up with. You can top up with water or a wine which is similar to the wine you're making. Or you could buy some marbles and put them in the secondary to raise the level of the wine to protect it. You're right, adding water will dilute your wine a bit, but the difference in your SG isn't (from my viewpoint) going to make that big of a deal. I usually just round up or round down when figuring a % alcohol. Or you could follow the recipe this time, see what happens, and then modify the recipe yourself the next time. Maybe someone who's made this recipe can help more. Darlene

Darlene is right and recipes are guidelines. That works okay for the experienced but not so well for the neophyte. Also, recipes can be written in different ways. A gal may be a British gallon or a US gal. Then most recipes are written to start with a gal. This is a problem when you top up. I think Jacks recipes are written to end with a gallon.

Anyway, a solution. Get some magnum wine bottles and some regulars and maybe some splits. visit you local winemaking supply and get some small bungs and some extra airlocks. Rack into wine bottles with airlocks and you will not have to top up. or maybe only a little.

I personally hate using marbles if there is going to be any sediment at all. It coats the marbles and you cannot cleanly rack the wine that is down in the marbles. But then maybe that is just me.

Ray

Thanks for the input. What I'm really looking for is whether it's actually possible to calculate accurately the alcohol volume of the finished product if I've added water.

The rest of the msg was more a drawn out b*tch session against the recipe. I usually use recipes as a vague sort of guideline, but decided to follow this one, as it's a dessert style and made a bit differently than I've made in the past. I didn't bother reading down far enough to see that I'd be topping up with that much water. I

*could* have just left it, and it looked stunningly thick and flavourful, but followed the recipe instead.

Even if it were a US gallon (4.5l) rather than the other (what is the other?) of 4L, it's still a whole lot of water to top up... The recipe left me with only 3 litres to play with. forget the marbles. That's just crap - doing all of that for 3 litres of wine. craziness. Okay. Second rant. My apologies. huh. so I'm still left with no clue as to what I now have on my hands. CAN I find out? Is it possible?