Hola all!

Here's the thing. i was looking at my Hydrometer and it talks about the different levels for stabilizing wine. However i was at my local wine and beer supply shop getting some more bottles and supplies and the guy who runs the shop is a pretty wise guy. However he told me something i had never heard of and i was wondering if anyone else heard the same advice.

What he had said was that when i ferment my wine, i should let it ferment all the way and then add back some of the Wine Extract to sweeten it to the flavor/sweetness i want. Reason being that it guarantees the highest alcohol content for the wine (which makes sense) but it also lengthens the shelf life of my wine when i make it.

He mentioned how by stopping the stabilization early, since there is still sugars in the wine, it makes it only good to shelve for about a year and it also has the possibility of getting bacteria growth in it the longer i let it sit.

I guess i was wondering more from the general wine making community how true this is. How do the big wineries do it and are still able to shelve their wine for years and years.

Not that I'm looking to shelve wine for 40 years or anything, but a good 5 years would be nice.

So am i right in stopping my wine early? or am i doing it all wrong?

Edited by: garaxiel

[Wade E]

There are really only 2 ways of stopping a wine early! 1 is by cold stabilizing it by getting the temp down around 36* for a few weeks and then immediately rack off and add k- meta and sorbate and filtering would also be recommended also to try and eliminate and yeast that could come back to life when temp gets back up. The other method is by sterile filtering with a special filter with a micron of .25 as this would remove everything but the wine including any yeast and sediment. Just adding k-meta and sorbate will not stop an active fermentation unless you were to literally dump this stuff in at ratios that would destroy the taste of the wine and even that may not be safe. The best way to have a sweet wine is do as above or finish fermenting till dry and sweeten back. The other option which is a little unpredictable as to where it will actually stop but usually get it pretty close is to start with a higher SG and use a yeast with a low tolerance to abv and calculate approximately were the yeast will be overpowered. the higher the abv the better the shelf life will be. Better corks and the proper S02 levels and proper cellaring conditions will also attribute to this.

[termini]

Question about back sweetening-- For insurance, do you also add a little k-meta to the back sweetening mixture- or anything else you might add- to make sure that whatever you add will not re-activate fermentation?

[Wade E]

Right before back sweetening you will add k-meta 1st at the rate of 1/4 tsp per 6 gallon and then the sorbate at the rate of 3 tsp per 6 gallon, then you may back sweeten. There is a product called wine conditioner out there made by a few companies like Wine Expert and RJ Spagnols which is inverted sugar with sorbate in it. The sorbate contents in this bottle is not enough to prevent re-fermentation, its just enough to prevent the product from fermenting. All this product is is basically a sugar water syrup that you can make on your stove by using the /1 ratio consisting 1 part boiling water with sugar double the water added while boiling to dissolve the sugar then let it cool down to room temp and add it to your wine. I have used the wine conditioner and found that it gives off a artificial sweetening flavor.

[grapeman]

Stopping your wine from finsihing fermenting is a crap shoot at best. Sometimes if you keep it cool and drink it soon enough it will be OK but most of the time, it will begin fermenting again and you will have carbonated wine or worse yet, bottles popping their corks or exploding. Do as the guy and Wade said and finish fermenting dry and stabilize with K-meta and sorbate. The sweeten a bit if you want. It will keep much better for you that way.

[PeterZ]

Remember also that sorbate does not kill yeast, it just stops it from reproducing. If you already have millions of active yeast cells the addition of sorbate will not have much of an effect.


The best way to make a sweetened wine is to ferment to dryness, yielding an abv of 12% or more (the higher alcohol level inhibits bacterial growth) and then stabilize and back sweeten.

[OGrav]

dry, then sorbate/sweeten back. You can use this opportunity to add back some flavor as well. I backsweeten and stabilize at one operation (last rack before bottling), then put under lock for a couple more weeks to make sure there is no refermentation, then bottle.

excellent! thank you all. let me point out my current process

i fermented my last batch (and previous) this same way

i let them ferment to taste as gauged by my hydrometer (.994 for my merlot, and .998 for my Zin Royale in this last batch)

i added the k-meta and the sorbate in the proper amounts to stabilize

i racked the wine for sediment every 2 months. then this past weekend i bottled them (kind of rushed this batch, the next batch come september will be a 3 month/full year to bottle timeframe)

so what your all saying then is to just let it keep fermenting till it is done(will stop automatically right?) add the k-meta and sorbate to stabilize, then after the first racking backsweeten and add the k-meta and sorbate to stabilize the amount of backsweetener used?

[Wade E]

I will sometimes stabilize then sweeten and then add fining agent depending on what Im sweetening back with. For example, if you are making a Pineapple wine and want to sweeten with pineapple juice there most likely will be some pulp, for this reason i will clear afterwards.

[grapeman]

With SG readings of .994 and less likely .998 your wine may have been done fermenting anyways. Occasionally it will fo down to .990, but not really often for me. I consider anything that remains stable under .998 (for 3-5 days or more) done fermenting.