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Residual Sugar Detection

For the first time I just ran some residual sugar tests using Clinitest and found most of the wines in the 0.25% to 0.5% sugar range. Some of the wines seem like they have detectable level of sugar, but I don't know if it's just a taste associated with young wines. I read on some other posts that these aren't too far out of whack, but I want to make sure I don't leave very detectable amounts of sugar. Thoughts?

Also, there appears to be one wine (a syrah) that's at about 1%. Let's say I wanted to drop that. Can I assume that primary fermentation is as done as it's going to get by now? If so, I've read something about killer yeasts that you get started at a reasonable volume (e.g., 10%) and then add to restart the fermentation. But is wine at 1% sugar just too low to do anything about?

...Michael

Reply to
Michael Brill
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Michael, I wouldn't worry about a 1% residual sugar (RS) reading. The wine is still dry, the RS should be enhancing the Syrah's flavor, and if the wine is stable it will be fine. I certainly wouldn't risk the wine's stability by introducing a killer yeast strain. Besides, there is such a thing as too dry....

Just my opinion....

Jack Keller, The Winemaking Home Page

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Reply to
Jack Keller

Thanks Jack. Why would a killer yeast decrease the wine's stability? My concern so far was just getting the thing going in a barrel of 1% RS wine. Also, what's your though on the best way to test for RS?

...Michael

Reply to
Michael Brill

Michael, Clinitest is still the way to go right now.

As for why a killer yeast would make a wine unstable, I guess I stated it wrong. If you have a stable wine with 1% RS, adding yeast to it is silly to me because 1% is a good number. I tried to point this out in my previous post. Adding yeast to a stable wine just doesn't make sense because (1) there isn't enough sugar in there to get a vigorous fermentation, (2) it will take additional time to return the wine to stability, and (3) you could render the wine too dry to be enjoyable. In my humble opinion, a little RS is better than none -- a little RS enhances flavor.

Jack Keller, The Winemaking Home Page

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Reply to
Jack Keller

You can leave some residual sugar, but it requires extremely good cellar hygiene. Brettanomyces will grow and produce significant levels of contaminants in as little as 0.25g/L of sugar (0.025%). Keep your sulphur levels up (30ppm free SO2 even in a red wine), and make sure you always add a minimum dose of 10-20ppm SO2, as adding smaller quantities just trains them to like the stuff!

Cheers,

Andrew

Many thanks to a seminar run by Peter Godden of the AWRI for the above information.

Reply to
Andrew L Drumm

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