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Occasional wine kit maker needs advice.

Greetings, a sometimes lurker here who makes the occasional wine kit. Always amazed at the knowledge and the depth of involvment of some posters here. I recently started a white wine kit. I always try to follow the suggested times on the instructions for the various steps, but this time I left the wine in the primary fermenter too long. SG was .995 when I put it into the secondary fermenter. Believing it would be better to have it ferment a little more to drive out any air above the wine, I stirred in about a cup of sugar desolved in boiled water. That was 4 days ago and still no sign of any activity in the air lock. Since I don't want a sweet wine (assuming I haven't ruined it anyway) I need to know the best course of action. Add more sugar, buy some more wine yeast? This is a "Wine Art" chablis and when transfered to the secondary, it had a rather sharp cidery smell. Would that be normal? My best regards to the groups and thanks for any advice.

Reply to
Mike72903
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Hi Mike,

You didn't say what your initial SG was, but I'm assuming it to be around

1.090-1.095. By the time the SG drops to 0.995, the alcohol content may be too high to expect any added sugar to ferment.

You also didn't say what your must volume was, but (since it's a kit) I'm assuming 5 gallons. Five tablespoons of sugar will raise the SG of one gallon by .005. A cup is 16 tablespoons, and that amount of sugar would raise 5 gallons by .003. That is a reasonable addition when sugar feeding, but if your ferment had already slowed down to "the stage of no return", any sugar addition could cause it to stick.

You also didn't say what the must temperature was. You may get the ferment to restart by increasing the temperature to 75-80F, and/or adding a vigorously-fermenting alcohol-tolerant yeast starter, but I suspect you won't be able to restart this one, and will just make it worse by trying.

Assuming the wine was completely dry at 0.995, and that your must volume is

5 gallons, your sugar addition has left you with less than 0.7 % residual sugar. That's not dry, but it's not overly sweet, either. If you bump up the acid a bit, you may not even notice the sweetness.

DON'T ADD MORE SUGAR! You can try increasing the temperature, and adding some alcohol tolerant yeast (e.g. Premier Cuvee), or making up a yeast starter and adding that, or following the "Stuck fermentations" procedure at

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but I think it will be futile.

An alternative is to blend it (50:50) with a completely dry wine. Then you will end up with less than .35 % residual sugar.

I'm not sure what you mean by a "cidery smell". Does it smell like apples, like vinegar, like alcohol, like yeast?

Reply to
Negodki

What I would do is make a starter with some EC-1118 yeast, and get it going nicely, and then add 500mL of your wine to that starter, and ensure that it starts fermenting, and then add that back into your wine. What temperature is the wine at right now? You'll want to make sure it's not too cold either... let the wine get up to 20C or so... HTH

Reply to
Charles H

Negodki and Charles, thanks for the great advice. I would have to order any yeast or other product to get it fermenting again so I believe I will just leave it like it is. One of my favorite white wines was the Christian Brothers Chenin Blanc which had a little sweetness. I'll follow the rest of the instructions and hope for the best. If I have managed to ruin it, well there are worse things. Thanks again for both of your all's knowledge and recommendations. Regards, Mike

Reply to
Mike72903

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