Starting gravity for making a sweet wine (not backsweetening)?

I have a list of final gravity for various sweetness of finished wines, as below -
<1.007 dry
1.007 - 1.015 semi-sweet
1.016 - 1.025 sweet
>1.026 dessert

But, I havent got a figure for what the starting gravity should be! Should I go with the usual 1.090 for them all, or adjust it higher at the start, if the aim is for a sweeter product at the end?

If you let wine ferment fully it will get down to .990 and will not go much lower and willwbe dry as a bone, afaik it's not the starting reading that is important it's the finishing reading but I am no expert so stand to be corrected, I also think the readings you have given are out as I was under the impression .990 - .995 was dry .1007 seems way too high.

This of course is one of the problems - finding an accurate list!

As I see it, just stopping the ferment at a higher reading will of course mean its sweeter, as there will be more remaining sugar, but also weaker, as less will have been converted to alcohol. To my mind, the starting gravity should be increased in order to still hit around 13% whilst still allowing to end at the desired sweetness.

At the moment I just ferment right out, as its easier! But I plan on making a sweet mead using very high quality local honey, which would be sacrilage to back-sweeten!

Assume that:

• Your FG will be 1.010.
• You are using a Youngs Wine Yeast with a tolerance of up to 13% alcohol.

Go to Brewers Friend Calculators above, ABV calculator and:

• Feed in an FG of 1.010.
• Adjust the OG to give a calculated ABV of 13%.

You will find that an OG of 1.110 will give an ABV of 13.13% with an FG of 1.010.

So if you start at an OG of 1,110 the FG will be at or slightly above by the time it ferments out to a FG of 1.010. At this stage the yeast will have killed itself and you will have a sweet wine with an ABV of 13% ...

... I think!

Zakrabbit said:

This of course is one of the problems - finding an accurate list!

As I see it, just stopping the ferment at a higher reading will of course mean its sweeter, as there will be more remaining sugar, but also weaker, as less will have been converted to alcohol. To my mind, the starting gravity should be increased in order to still hit around 13% whilst still allowing to end at the desired sweetness.

At the moment I just ferment right out, as its easier! But I plan on making a sweet mead using very high quality local honey, which would be sacrilage to back-sweeten!

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Crossmyloof do a mead yeast that finishes sweet. Personally i don't mind back sweetening as i find i can control it easier. I was thinking of doing a batch with cheap honey and putting some manuka in at the end.

Zakrabbit said:

To my mind, the starting gravity should be increased in order to still hit around 13% whilst still allowing to end at the desired sweetness

Click to expand...

Does it matter if the finished wine is 11% or 12% and not 13% you certainly will not know by taste.

I now only add enough sugar to end at 10% as SWMBO was going to sleep after a hard day at work and a couple of glasses to relax and i am more than happy drinking it.

I have just bottled my first attempt at wine. It finished quite high - 1.005

It was in the FV for more than six weeks and got shook up, stirred and heated to 30C a number of times in the last two weeks in an attempt to get it drier but it just didn't work.

I can't remember exact numbers but it finished up at around 11%. The only thing I can think that caused this was the addition of bentonite at the beginning as advised by the manufacturer.

It's not advice or a surefire way of achieving a sweeter wine by any means but it's worth a go.

Those figure do seem off. I had a wine recently finish at 1.005 and I found it quite sweet compared to my other wine finishing at 0.995 which were really dry. I prefer a sweet wine personally

I haven't got loads of experience making wine, but by George do I have some experience drinking it!

This is what I used to use when I back sweetened -

0.990 is dry.
0.995 is medium-dry.
1.000 is medium.
1.005 is medium-sweet.
1.010 is sweet.

That looks a more sensible set of numbers to me Chippy!

I'll give it a go on my next WOW, aim for an FG of 1.010 and calculate the SG accordingly. A couple % is neither here nor there but dont want to end up brewing something weak

Right now ive to deal with a failed start of my apple wine! (too much bloody campden! so lots of aeration and then a re-pitch :-( )

I've got a mead that's cleared by itself. It started at around 1.096 which is 22% sugar (I use a refractometer) it fermented out to dry. That's when I got the hydrometer out just to double check. It read 1.000 bang on.

I added half a jar of honey to back sweeten the 4.5 litres worth and while there's not much activity in the air lock. Very small bubbles are still present in the mead.

Ive had problems with stopping mead from re fermenting before. And have on occasion ended up with fizzy mead. That thanks to my greed of opening more than just one bottle of a weekend prevented catastrophic bottle bomb situations.

Campden tablets don't seem to suffice for me.

What else can I do to halt it before it attempts to ferment the remaining honey I added to sweeten.

Just used gervin white wine yeast. Didn't even feed it nutrients half way through like I have done before as it seemed to be rolling along just fine without any messing.

I'd like to bottle some for work colleagues who've shown an interest.

I used to rack it when clear and add bentonite. Then back sweeten and bottle. Sometimes adding stabilser the day before.

BeerCat said:

I used to rack it when clear and add bentonite. Then back sweeten and bottle. Sometimes adding stabilser the day before.

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Isn't bennonite just another clearing agent?

It's stopping the mead from re fermenting that's seems to be the problem for me. I don't want to hand out potential bottle bombs to my work colleagues.

In theory the yeast should be dying off now. But as I say small bubbles are still present. With airlock activity every 10 minutes or so. So it's still plodding along.

brumbrew said:

Isn't bennonite just another clearing agent?

It's stopping the mead from re fermenting that's seems to be the problem for me. I don't want to hand out potential bottle bombs to my work colleagues.

In theory the yeast should be dying off now. But as I say small bubbles are still present. With airlock activity every 10 minutes or so. So it's still plodding along.

Click to expand...

Yes its for clearing the wine. I do it after this to stop it fermenting when i back sweeten it and clear it ready to bottle. My meads are generally months old by then so there is not much chance of the yeast doing much and they are mostly 14%+ so not a good environment for yeast. You could always pasteurise the bottles in water.

brumbrew said:

..........

What else can I do to halt it before it attempts to ferment the remaining honey I added to sweeten.

..........

Click to expand...

Introduce a Stabiliser ...

https://www.wilko.com/en-uk/wilko-w...0_1535328296_46718a4b7e9250004fbe649792e3aebf

... and then add the sweetener.

You have to be careful when using stabiliser (fermentation stopper) as i have found back sweetening with juice or sugar can start fermentation again and you do not want that in sealed bottles, the reason (as stated below) is Potassium Sorbate does not kill the yeast but does makes it sterile in other words it impairs the wine yeast's ability to reproduce itself but it does not hinder the wine yeast's ability to ferment sugar into alcohol, be careful out there.





Potassium Sorbate is another home wine making ingredient that many winemakers consider when trying to stop a wine from fermenting any further. There is a lot of misunderstanding surrounding this product.

It is typically called for by home wine making books when sweetening a wine. This is a situation where the fermentation has already completed and is ready for bottling. You simply add the Potassium Sorbate along with the sugar that is added for sweetening.

The Potassium Sorbate stops the wine yeast from fermenting the newly added sugar. So, many winemakers assume Potassium Sorbate can stop an active fermentation as well. But, nothing could be further from the truth.

Potassium Sorbate does not kill the yeast at all, but rather it makes the wine yeast sterile. In other words, it impairs the wine yeast's ability to reproduce itself. But, it does not hinder the wine yeast's ability to ferment sugar into alcohol.

Potassium Sorbate puts a coating on the cell wall of each individual wine yeast in such a way that budding or multiplying is next to impossible.

The idea here is that if you happen to have few cells of live wine yeast remaining in your finished wine, they will be rendered harmless if they are unable to regenerate themselves to great enough numbers to invigorate a fermentation of any kind. This is true even if more sugar is added to the finished wine.

Read more - http://eckraus.com/wine-making-stop-fermentation/

This is exactly what I've found in the past chippy.

Yo think you've stopped fermentation when in reality you've jut slowed it to a crawl.

After two months in the bottle you've got champagne

I had a batch that started in the bottles and i had to release the pressure every day until it stopped, they weren't gushers but they did make a bit of a hiss every time i opened them slightly, i am sure if i had not released the CO2 the plastic screw caps or bottles would have given up under the pressure and i would have got a right bollocking off Mrs Tea for the mess..

Thankfully I've only ever had one bottle bomb. And it was a beer that my mate gave me. He primed it with honey coincidentally. There was glass every where and beer dripping from the ceiling.

I bet that didn't go down well.