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leelanau

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I enjoy white wines that are sweet. Why are many of the Winexpert white wine kits rated "0" for dry? I recently made my first wine, Muller Thurgau, a riesling cross blend, and on tasting at two months I can tell ittastes likewine but it seems to be lacking that special sweetness that a commercial wine would have. My basic question:do the whites not have the residual sugar or whatever is necessary to make them sweet? Has anyone found that these kit wines aremore dry than commercial wines? Leelanau Edited by: leelanau
 
Why dont you sweeten it back or use a different yeast that wiil not
produce a high alc. They probably stop ferm. before its done with cold
stabilization to get that effect or maybe they sweeten back but I
dought it. Or maybe they use a weak strain of yeast that leaves a
residual sugar.


Edited by: wadewade
 
I like off dry wines but not sweet.


I found that to my taste up to 4% by volume satisfies my taste for a wine that just comes out of the dry and yet is not sweet either.


Ill bet 6% by volume would get you in the taste range you desire.
I guess a pro could use the yeast alcohol tolerance to get a desired sweetness result.
The thought scares me at my stage of experience but someday i would truly like to posess the skill to use the yeast as the controll.Edited by: scotty
 
OK, I've seen some info online that concentrates are dry at bottling as fermentation is completed and all sugar is used up by the yeast. I've seen info on wine conditioners, etc. I see in the Winexpert kits you add sorbate during stabilization and clearing. Can someone explain "back sweetening" and how to do it? Do you add sugar while in the carboy, after it is stabilized and cleared? I think my wine is young as only two months in the bottle. Compared to month one tasting, I think it is smoothing out and getting sweeter/off-dry.Leelanau
 
I what I have read and experienced, most every wine yeast will take a wine to at least 10% ABV on its own, at least on thecharts I looked at.


I think in the case of commercial wines, when the wine reaches the sweetness/desired ABV level the vintner stops the fermentation to retain the residual sweetness. I know cold stablization can do this, but I'm not sure of other methods.


What I would do in the case of the white kits is allow the wine to finish fermenting and treat with kmeta and sorbate and wait a few days then back sweeten to taste. This is much easier than trying to pinpoint the stopping point of the fermentation and actually getting it to stop and not restart.


I'm not sure if this would work (someone please comment if not), but you might try taking a bottle of your favorite commerical white wine and check the SG. Then sweeten your white kit to this SG. Remember, if you add sugar to your wine add small amounts andtest, repeat until you reach the desire sweetnes.
 
wadewade said:
tell me about it scotty


I Guess you have had the same experience
smiley1.gif
 
To me, back sweetening is putting sugar/sweetness back into a dry/totally finished fermanting wine. ((ask why i emphasize totally fermented
smiley36.gif
)
I like the % by volume method because it seems simple.


1 us gallon = 128 ounces. 1% is 1.28 ounces . I just multiply 1.28X4 and add that much sugar/syrup. I like prox 4% by volume sweetness.
Of course this is not accurate because i am changing the volume. But i'm not a chemist and if it turns out too dry or sweet I either add sugar or change the formula for future batches.
Again i have only made a few batches of diferent wines but i think that common sense it the rule in this art even if one is only a wineslob.Edited by: scotty
 
All Winexpert Kits except for the Island Mist and Selection Spéciale finish either dry or off dry which they note as the "sweetness code". If the Muller Thurgau is not sweet enough for you then adding some wine conditioner 6375to your next kit is the easiest way to make it sweeter. It is added at the same time you added the F-Pack to the Muller.


As pkcook suggested, checking the SG of a commercial wine to determine it's sugar concentration is a great way to adjust your wines in the future. Adding wine conditioner in small amounts until you reach your target SG to match the commercial wine should bring the sweetness level to your liking.
 
leelanau, just so that you know, the winexpert wine conditioner is an
inverted sugar(liquid sugar) that works very well and does not cloud up
your wine that sometimes a sgar water mix that I have done will. I have
also taken a 1/2 gallon of a similiar juice if making a fruit wine and
simmered it in a pot to reduce the amount of juice and still keep the
sugar. This works very well also.
 
You can also add some to each bottle of the Muller you have now when ready to drink to sweeten it up.
 
For reference, I just sweetened up some strawberry/grape wine that I fermented down to bone dryness, .990, (not corrected for temp) with killer K1116. I like wines fairly sweet so I attempted to hit 1.008 with sugar addition. I arrived at this number from a chart from a "Enjoy Home Winemaking" book. Dry- .990-1.000, Med Dry- 1.000-1.008,and Sweet as being anything over. Figuring 2oz of sugar would raise five gal .001, I warmed up a few cups of the finished wine and dissolved 4.5C of sugar in it. I racked and mixed it up, ended up around 1.006/7, pretty close and probably sweet enough for my first attempt. A few months in the bottle will tell me for sure. This might give you some kind of ballpark to work in. Don't forget to stabilize.
LT
 
ograv - thanks for the latest post. I will note that information. Leelanau
Thank you also to the rest who have replied.
 

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