'Feeding' wine:

Hi folks,

When making a high/reasonably high alcohol wine, and feeding it the sugar a bit at a time (to help the yeast keep going in that environment?), how much of the total sugar is added at the start, and how much does one generally add at a tome, and at what intervals?

I'm only after some rough idea here for my curiosity, a general feel for it -anyone help me?

Thanks again,

Shaun aRe

Reply to
Shaun Rimmer
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I think Berry recommends about half up front and the rest over time. Check his Peach Perfection recipe for specifics.

Ray

Reply to
Ray

Reply to
J Dixon

John, I appreciated your response. I'm going to go back to my Watermelon recipe and see what I did to get a 15% alc. I'm not sure what happened, but the darn watermelon must fermented to 0 so quick - it has quite a kick to it. Usually when I add the sugar in the beginning, and then add the additional sugar later on so I don't get a stuck fermentation - I come up with a sweeter wine, not rocket fuel. Thanks. Darlene

Reply to
Dar V

I'd ferment to close to the known alcohol tolerance of the yeast (or around 13% - about SG 1.100 - if you're not sure what that is). Then feed the yeast every time the SG gets to around 1.000, taking it up to about 1.005. This method allows you to monitor the rate of sugar consumption close to the limit and avoids getting into a situation where you have a lot of residual sugar.

Ben

Reply to
Ben Rotter

1) Shoot for an initial SG of 1.095-1.100, which will give you a potential alcohol of 12-14%. 2) Start checking the SG daily after 3 days. When it gets to 1.000 or below, add about 2 oz. sugar per gallon, which will increase the SG by about .005.

Stir it well --- undissolved sugar can cause your fermentation to stick! [The best plan is to syphon off some of the wine into a separate container, add the sugar to it, stir well, add the sweetened LIQUID back to the carboy, and stir again.] Remember to leave sufficient headroom in the carboy. Adding sugar increases volume, and creates a lot of foaming.

3) Don't add additional sugar until the SG drops back to 1.000 or below. 4) Don't add additional sugar if the rate of fermentation slows down.

The procedure given in Berry's book is for very high alcohol (i.e. 20% abv) wines. By starting with half the sugar, one is effectively starting with an SG of 1.090 or more.

Reply to
Negodki

generally add > at a time, and at what intervals?

Thanks for the tips everyone - noted and logged ',;~}~

Cheers!

Shaun aRe

Reply to
Shaun Rimmer

Shaun,

The advise you have got so far is good, so I'll not comment further on this line.

No one mentions inverting the sugar. Adding uninverted sugar in granular form leaves the yeast with more to do, i.e. the inversion.

I recommend that you dissolve the sugar in boiling or at least simmering water, not letting the liquid go off the simmer while you stir it in bit-by-bit. Also add a little citric acid to help the inversion.

The sugar syrup so formed will be more readily assimilated by the must and the yeast will go to work on it straight away.

The usual ratios are: 2 lb sugar to one pint water, and added at 1/4 pint each time the gravity falls to 1.000 (or 1.010 as I prefer). Let it drop further as you get nearer to the alcohol tolerance of the yeast.

Note that because of the increase in volume of the water, caused by the addition of the sugar, that a 1/4 pint is equivalent to 4oz of sugar (one pound weight of sugar per pint of syrup).

I can not find a figure for the citric acid, but a teaspoonful of citric acid crystals should be enough. Sorry about this, but I have not done a strong wine for many years, only table wines. I forget too much these days!

The above figures are based on imperial measures, but US should not be far different. I think both the weights and liquid volumes are less than imperial, so the ratios should be about the same. It is not that critical!

HTH

Reply to
Shane Badham

Thanks for adding this! Inversion is always a good idea.

All US liquid measurements (gallons, quarts, pints, etc.) are 5/6 of their British counterparts, except the fluid ounce. One US fluid ounce = 1/128 US gallon, whereas one Imperial fluid ounce = 1/160 Imperial gallon, which makes the two measurements virtually the same.

There is no diffence between US and British pounds and ounces (of weight), except that we don't use "stones" (14 pounds).

Therefore, the weight-to-volume ratios will not be the same, but can easily be calculated by multiplying: USG = 6/5 IG; IG=5/6 USG

The following article discusses the history of the discrepancy between US an British volumetric measurements:

The names of the traditional volume units are the names of standard containers. Until the eighteenth century, it was very difficult to measure the capacity of a container accurately in cubic units, so the standard containers were defined by specifying the weight of a particular substance, such as wheat or beer, that they could carry. Thus the gallon, the basic English unit of volume, was originally the volume of eight pounds of wheat. This custom led to a multiplicity of units, as different commodities were carried in containers of slightly different sizes.

Gallons are always divided into 4 quarts, which are further divided into 2 pints each. For larger volumes of dry commodities, there are 2 gallons in a peck and 4 pecks in a bushel. Larger volumes of liquids were carried in barrels, hogsheads, or other containers whose size in gallons tended to vary with the commodity, with wine units being different from beer and ale units or units for other liquids.

The situation was still confused during the American colonial period, so the Americans were actually simplifying things by selecting just two of the many possible gallons. These two were the gallons that had become most common in British commerce by around 1700. For dry commodities, the Americans were familiar with the "Winchester bushel," defined by Parliament in 1696 to be the volume of a cylindrical container 18.5 inches in diameter and 8 inches deep. The corresponding gallon, 1/8 of this bushel, is usually called the "corn gallon" in England. This corn gallon holds 268.8 cubic inches.

For liquids Americans preferred to use the traditional British wine gallon, which Parliament defined to equal exactly 231 cubic inches in

1707. As a result, the U.S. volume system includes both "dry" and "liquid" units, with the dry units being about 1/6 larger than the corresponding liquid units.

In 1824, the British Parliament abolished all the traditional gallons and established a new system based on the "Imperial" gallon of 277.42 cubic inches. The Imperial gallon was designed to hold exactly 10 pounds of water under certain specified conditions. Unfortunately, Americans were not inclined to adopt this new, larger gallon, so the traditional English "system" actually includes three different volume measurement systems: U.S. liquid, U.S. dry, and British Imperial.

On both sides of the Atlantic, smaller volumes of liquid are traditionally measured in fluid ounces, which are roughly equal to the volume of one ounce of water. To accomplish this in the different systems, the smaller U.S. pint is divided into 16 fluid ounces, and the larger British pint is divided into 20 fluid ounces.

Reply to
Negodki

I don't know about everyone else but I found that very interesting. Thanks for the post.

Ray

Reply to
Ray

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