Modifying kit wines

I made a Grand Cru White Zinfandel, and when secondary fermentation was finished and I racked it to another carboy, I added 1-4 oz bottle of Raspberry Beer Flavoring. It turned out so good that I not only made a second batch, but also tried two other batches with apple and blackberry flavoring. The apple had to be sweetened, and the blackberry isn't ready to taste, yet. But it seems to work quite well.

And you know how some kits have oak powder to add to your kit? Well, if you think that a different flavor will help your wine, there's no reason not to add it. I'm thinking of adding cinnamon (via cinnamon sticks) flavoring into some of my kit wines. Of course, the big risk is that you're wrong and the flavor of the kit doesn't mix with whatever you add.

I've added sugar to bring SG to a more desirable level. Any amelioration is fair but remember watch your chemistry and make adjustments. If an already balanced kit is compromised you'll be doing yourself no flavours, er I mean favours.

I've seen in Winemaker where the BK guy (Tim Vandegrift) has recommended adding sugar to BK's Pinot Selection kit to pump up the alcohol to more Burgundy levels, and switching out the oak for toasted French oak. Never tried it, so I can't comment.

--Mike L.

Out of many batches, perhaps one or two red wines didn't get elderberries added -- and usually quite a lot -- up to a cup. But I really like elderberries, and what it does to the wine. :)

Elder flowers can enhance a white wine too -- but you have to be really careful with elderflowers, because for some people it can be really overpowering and too much. Other people, absolutely love the stuff. Buy some elderflower concentrate at Ikea. If you love the stuff, you'll probably enjoy it in a white wine. If you're not crazy about it, a little bit of elderflower can provide a hint of a bit more of a boquet to the wine.

LG

"Alf>Hello all,

Many kits I think can benefit with increased alcohol levels, but many of them take longer to mature into a nicer wine when this is done. I have the impression that if you don't add sugar, or if the alcohol content is lower, it seems to be drinkable sooner. However, with a bit more alcohol, you might get a better wine, later. I may speculate that some kits may intentionally lower in alcohol because the kit makers want to sell kits that can be rushed and drunk early.

LG

I don't know, I get a pretty good alcohol content from my kits. I just finished fermenting two kit wines that started at 1.090 SG and ended at

0.90SG, for a computed alcohol content of 14%. That's not bad.

That doesn't look right. What formula are you using?

Pp Vancouver, BC, Canada

I assume you mean SG final = 0.990 not .90. In that case I get 13.4% alcohol. Assuming numbers a bit more conservative and closer to what I generally get with kits: SG beginning = 1.088, SG ending = 0.996, I still get 12.4% and your point is still true. That is a fine level as for as I am concerned.

Ray

Typo in the original post, the ending SG was 0.990.

The April-May edition of Wine Maker had an article on calculating alcohol content from SG readings. I translated the article to an algorithm and wrote a little program to do the calculation for me based on starting and current SG. The code looks like this:

WDouble SGCalc(WDouble startingSG, WDouble endingSG) { WDouble startGravity= 1000 * (startingSG - 1.0); WDouble finalGravity= 1000 * (endingSG - 1.0); WDouble correctedStartGravity= startGravity - 7; WDouble PA= (startGravity - finalGravity) / (7.75 - 3 * correctedStartGravity / 800);

return ( PA ); }

Running this manually using the starting and ending SGs provided earlier, I get PA of 13.44%. I'll go back into the code to see why it's storing 14%.

Yeah, I ran the calc manually and it agrees with you: 13.44%. I'll have to look and see why my program is returning more than 14%.

Most likely it's rounding up to integer or doing an integer division somewhere instead of a real division.

Pp

Hi Ray

Here we go again. You can_not_get more alcohol in the wine than your original PA predicts. Period !! A pre-pitch SG of 1.090 will yield 12% alcohol. No more !! A pre-pitch SG of 1.088 will yield ~11.72% alcohol. No more !! If this were not true, our pre-pitch PA calculations would have no meaning !!

The use of the PA formula to calculate post-pitch alcohol levels simply does_not_work !! (unless you have a way to offset the change in reference point caused by the presence of alcohol)

I don't get this magazine. Can someone please post a link where I can read this article ?? HTH

Regards, Frederick

Fred, I would agree if the tables were correct, but most tables are based incorrectly. If you use the table provided by Duncan and Acton in their book "Progressive Winemaking" you are pretty much correct. Their number is an maximum that can be obtained. Unfortunately most tables give PA as the alcohol that will be generated if the SG drops to zero. As you know, SG does not drop to zero and stop. The alcohol you end up with will generally be higher than that predicted by most tables.

Ray

Frederick:

doesn't look like it's online: It's The Unified Theory of Gravity, but there is no link:

If I remember correctly, the author was comparing 2 different formulas that started with big difference in values, but when one of these was adjusted to include the ending gravity, the difference evened out.

I think the formula in Margalit's book is also closer if one included the ending gravity to add to the original PA value. And my hydrometer has a scale for PA under 1.000 sg, so that again suggests it makes sense to consider the ending value. So if that's a mistake, it's understandable why people (repeatedly) make it.

Pp

Hi Ray

Got your email. I will wait until I can read the article before I reply to the rest of these posts. But - I think I already see where the confusion lays. Hopefully, this time, I will be better able to explain.

Frederick

........

Hi Pp

I'm waiting for a copy of an article that Ray is sending. But let me comment on just this last statement of yours. By *definition* there is no such thing as a negative number for PA. Look it up. PA is estimated based on the amount of fermentable sugars that are available to be converted to alcohol. Since it should be obvious that we *can't* have less than zero sugar, it follows that we can't have less than zero PA. I know that the chart that is rolled up and glued to the inside of your hydrometer has marks that make it

*seem* to have negative numbers, but the fact is that this just ain't so. That chart is based entirely on the premise that the reference point being used is SG 1.000, and so long as this is true, the information on it is valid. HOWEVER - as soon as the reference point shifts, ALL OF THAT INFO BECOMES INSTANTLY *INVALID* !! Alcohol causes a shift in the reference point. Thus, all post pitch readings are no longer accurate.

I will wait to read that article, but the above will be the basis of my further comments. I really hope it makes sense this way. HTMS

pp ,

The author was me. Fred and I have had this difference of opinion before. In fact it spurred me to write the article. Let Fred review the article and discuss it with me off line and maybe we can agree on something even if it is to agree to disagree. ;o)

Ray

Of course, we could just take some dry wine that's fermented down to

0.990, measure its alcohol level, and that should tell us which formula is the closest :) Anybody who's got the hardware up for a practical experiment?

Pp

.............

Pp

This has already been done many, MANY times. Why repeat something when the results are already known ??

First I was gone for 2 days, and now Ray is on the road until Thursday. Give us a little time to get together on this issue and we will get back to you on this, I promise. TIA