Troublesome supermarket wine! Small mystery .....

[Polymath]

Hey all,

This is now my 3rd attempt at making some "supermarket juice" wine. I have two issues. Here is the first one.

My 3rd batch is
- 1 litre "Orange/Peach/Passionfruit" from ASDA
- 1 Litre of White Grape Juice.
- 1 kg sugar.
- Water to top it up.

This is how it looked when I started it :

I'm worried about the sugar being at the bottom and not mixing very well. Is this likely to be a problem and does it happen often? Also the OG was only showing as 1040, but im guessing since the sugar's didn't mix fully with the liquid then this is quite a fake reading.

Second issue. Batch #2 which started last week. It was Pineapple + White Grape Juice. It seemed to have finished within 10 days of starting. OG was about 1080ish, then FG ended at 990. However when tasting it, its very sweet. I don't understand why it can be so sweet when the FG is reading 990? What am I doing wrong with this one?

The only thing I can think of is that im adding too much sugar. The yeasties are having their fill and then not eating the rest of the sugar. However that doesn't add up with the hydrometer reading ... anyone else have any suggestions or insights into that one .....

 

[Moley]

First one, I would give that a very thorough shaking, then if anything still settles out, stir it with the handle of your long handled spoon.

Second one, if your hydrometer says .990 that should taste dry. How are you taking your trial jar sample? If you're syphoning there could be undissolved sugar in the bottom. Rack it off to another DJ.

You should never have undissolved sugar in the bottom of a DJ like that. Never.

Boil your sugar to a syrup with a little water, I usually use 500ml water to 1kg sugar, then allow it to cool before you add it.

 

[Polymath]

Cheers for the feedback, I know it will help my future brews. Going to attack this one with the end of the spoon sometime tommorow night, see if I can mix it up a bit better.

When it comes to taking samples, this is normally when im racking from one demi to another. My syphon has a valve at the end, which i turn, then release a bit into a wine glass for "sampling". Then continue into the demi-john as normal to continue the racking. The hydrometer reading is found from me leaving the hydrometer inside the demi and just peering from the side.

Gonna try that suggestion. 500ml to 1kg of sugar. I had a strange worry that I would need more water, that the sugar would have problems mixing with such a low volume of water. I guess that's why its heated, to increase the speed of being dissolved. Final consideration is my target for the final gravity and alcohol content of my brews. Normal wines come out about 12% alcohol. According to this post for 12% alcohol, the difference between gravity should be 90 (12% X 7.5). If i'm aiming for a semi dry wine, I need an FG of 990 to 995. So my OG needs to be 1080 to 1085.

With that in mind, if I have added my juices, and toped up the demi so that its an inch from the shoulder. Then I can use the sugar water to gently top it up until the hydrometer hits my 1080 target. Then its yeast and go go go Does this sound like a good way of doing things?

 

[leondz]

Sounds like a great way of doing things :thumb:

 

[Moley]

It's good practice to boil your sugar into a syrup first, you get a true gravity reading from the start and your yeasties can get straight on with the job. You might be surprised how little water is needed. Give it a frequent stir while it's coming to the boil so it doesn't stick and burn, although a bit of caramel isn't a problem.

Sounds like you've got the maths sussed, although you might want to aim for 1.095 if you're starting from the bottom of the shouder and then topping up with cooled, boiled water when fermentation has slowed down.

 

[Polymath]

Cheers Moley,

As a recognised poster on this forum, you have shown yourself as a fountain of knowledge for me. Bravo, and thanks man. Really means something to me. A few new things on this thread. I will be boiling my sugar's to the point of syrup to make sure things mix exactly the way they should do. I will also be aiming for 1095, so that's about 13.5% ish ABV. Which is a good number. Gets the family drunk, and makes it hard to walk after a few glasses. Wahey.

Job Done.
Thanks dude.

 

[Moley]

Thanks Polymath, I've taken enough help from this forum to get me started on AG brewing so I'm glad if I can give something back on winemaking, although I'm certainly no expert.

What I meant with the gravities was if you start with around 4 litres at 1.095, by the time you've topped up the DJ with boiled water, that would dilute to a net 1.085, giving the 12% you were looking for.