sickly sweet wines

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fallowski

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Hi all,
Winemaking is a new hobby for me this year and over the summer I started four 'county' wines off (plum, elderberry, blackberry and vine prunings), following recipes in Berry's 1st steps in winemaking. All four are now 2 or 3 months on and have virtually come to a standstill in terms of observable fermentation (having all had very excitable early stages, particularly the darker ones which made numerous bids for freedom over the initial week or so). I've had a quick taste of each this weekend...

...without exception they are all undrinkably sweet. Now, having read a few of the posts on this forum and it quickly became clear that the BErry book is infamous for recommending too much sugar in recipes. So, it may be that this is how they're supposed to taste. However, I felt my teeth disolving just bringing the glass to my lips - the blackberry tasted not disimilar to undiluted ribena. My question is: is there anything I can do at this stage to reduce the similarity to kiddie's squash...or am I going to have to put this down to experience and start again next year? Each recipe I think called for 1.5kg per gallon. What quantities should I be using in the future? a kilo? less? Any advice gratefully received! Thanks.
 
fallowski said:
Each recipe I think called for 1.5kg per gallon.

Whoa.

Ok, I have no expertise in this area, but from glancing at the wine side of the instructions in my Magnum cider kits, they use 3.5kg of sugar for a 5 gallon brew.

Now someone who knows a lot better will tell you. :P
 
Welcome to the forum, and welcome to what can be a great hobby, although I'm sorry to hear that your first attempts haven't worked out well, through no fault of your own.

It has been suggested that CJJB's sugar quantities are higher because sugar refinement methods have improved and a pound of sugar now is sweeter than it was in the 1970s. Another argument is that if you follow CJJB's recipes, with a gallon of water added plus fruit juices extracted plus increased volume due to ‘sugar bulking’, many of CJJB's recipes will actually yield closer to 1.5 gallons so the sugar levels are correct. That's not a great deal of help when we are using gallon demijohns, even if you do try to keep the excess in a second, smaller bottle to use for topping up after racking.

Whatever the case, you now have an assortment of wines which you find undrinkable, but don't give up on them yet.

For future reference, I rarely use more than 1kg of sugar to the gallon.

Do you have a hydrometer, and what have your wines finished at?

If you take a look at my “How To” guide to Wurzel's Orange, that base recipe can be modified extensively. If you reduce the sugar to 500g and use a grape/orange or grape/apple combination you will end up quite quickly with a wine which is absolutely bone dry. Blend that with one of your over-sweet wines and you should have an acceptable medium wine.
 
I made Elderberry wine from Berry's book and it's fermented right down and now waiting for it to clear. Was a bit much sugar though. Moley worked out that it's going to be about 20% :party:

Where are you brewing your wine. Fermentation may have stopped because it's too cold. Do you have a hydrometer?
 
thanks for the swift replies! Ok...I do have a hydrometer but have not yet really used before now. However, I've just done some quick measurements:

Blackberry - about 1.135 (this was started on 10th Aug)
Elderberry - seems to be sub 1.000 (997. Had a taste and it's not as bad as I'd first feared. A little medicinal but that may be because it's very young - started at beginning of Sep)
Vine prunings - 1.130 (started in late Aug)
Wild plum - 1.160! Flippin' heck... (started early Sep)

They were started in my kitchen for a couple of weeks - so normal-to-warm room temperature for most part of the day, then moved to a slightly cooler room (but hardly cold). I've put them all next to the living room radiator today to see if that prompts them to wake up...we'll see.

Think the elderberry might be ok over time. Good idea re blending - will give it a go if all else fails. Don't suppose there's any mileage in just bunging a load more yeast in is there??
 
have just checked the wild plum recipe and that calls for a whopping 1.75kg of sugar, which I guess goes some way to explaining why it's higher than the others!
 
Now hang on a minute, are you telling us those are the gravities NOW?

Elderberry has fermented out, follow the instructions for racking and maturing and that should be great in a few months' time, but the others haven't done anything, those are starting gravities.

Got to go, but I'll be back online within the hour.
 
no...my mistake. what I meant was the following:

b-berry = 1.035
vine prunings = 1.030
plum = 1.060

sorry, misread the hydrometer and added .100 to each score...

Elderberry was correct though.
 
Sorry, good intentions and all that, but I fell asleep.

Blackberry and Vine Prunings: try warming them up again to see if they will go a little further, but I think blending would be my own choice.

The Plum is a diferent matter, that is still very high. I think I would use a couple of litres of red grape juice plus water to 2 gallons and try re-starting with something like a Gervin GV3 yeast or a super yeast compound with plenty of nutrient, but read on first.

fallowski said:
Don't suppose there's any mileage in just bunging a load more yeast in is there??
None at all if you just throw it in, the alcohol level will kill it, but it is possible by getting that grape juice, water and perhaps just 100g of sugar fermenting in a lidded bucket and then gradually introducing your plum syrup, just a pint at a time over the course of a fortnight.
 
no worries - and thanks for all your advice. It is much appreciated.

For about 24 hours now I've had the wines next to a constant heat source (radiator) and with the occasional shake there seems to be some slow activity. I'll see how this develops but in the meantime get a very dry wine on, as per your suggestion, for potential blending a little later down the line.

As for the plum, I'll try what you suggest with the red grape juice. It'd be a shame to completely give up on this one, not least because it's a beautiful colour.

Will post with further developments. Thanks again for your help.
 
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