How much sugar to raise SG in Kit?

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roadpupp

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I am on my fourth kit now. It is a Wine Expert Limited edition Washington Meritage.

I got the must ready, added the roughly 1.5 gallons of warmed up water (it's a 16 liter kit) and checked SG. The instructions said the starting SG should be 1.095-1.100. I was reading 1.090 to 1.092. The total volume was 23 liters as I have marked and verified my primary bucket a few times.

I ended up adding 3 cups of white sugar to the 6 gallons of must. This got me to 1.098.

Are there any ill effects to doing this? I know I should trust the kit. Does anyone else add sugar to decent quality kits to make the starting SG exactly correct?

Is there a rule of thumb for 6 gallon kits? IE, 1/2 cup of sugar equals 0.002 SG increase?

Thanks
 
I don't add anything at the beginning of a kit. I trust the manufacturer. All my additions and tweaks come after secondary is close to done.
 
The main thing sugar does is raise your alcohol content. If you have a triple scale hydrometer, just check what your potential alcohol is at the two SG's. Thats your difference in the final product.
 
I understood that adding more sugar was going to get me more alcohol but that wasn't my intention (necessarily)!

I just know that my must was the right volume and the SG was low.

It sounds like I may end up with more alcohol than originally intended but hopefully three cups of sugar in a 6 gallon must won't affect the taste too much?
 
Alcohol definitely affects the wines profile/bouquet. The more alcohol there is the more that is what you smell over the wines other notes. I don't think this will effect the profile all that much. Just make sure that sugar gets dissolved as normally you dissolve the sugar up front by making a simple syrup, then adding that to the must.
 
I know with some juice buckets that some times they will begin to ferment on there own so that when you get them the sg could be lower, not sure about the kits but i would imagine that that is possible with them too.
 
Kits are flash pasteurized just before the juice goes into the bag. This kills any/all yeast so the product is stable on the shelf. Its possible and does happen on rare occasion. Juice buckets on the other hand usually have yeast added or if not they have usually not had any treatment to make the juice sterile so they are much more prone to starting to ferment on their own.
 
Thanks guys

Perhaps I am just being overly attentive but the SG was definately a tad low and I wanted to start the kit off on the right foot (and a figured three cups would yield only a small increase in alcohol).

Bob, thanks for the link and the confirmation that I didn't screw up the wine with super high alcohol content.

I stirred the heck out of the 80 degree must until I couldn't hear/feel the sugar granules so I think it was absorbed.

I have heard of others doctoring their lower cost kits to get more "kick" in them but for higher cost kits, it sounds like I should just record the starting SG and then leave it alone? I am interested in balanced wine, not rocket fuel!
 
Did you calibrate your hydrometer? It could be off. For example, my thermohydrometer's calibration temp is 60F, so I placed it in 60F pure (I used distilled) water and got a reading of 0.998. That reading is two "points" low and means that two "points" need to be added to any future readings taken to get an accurate SG. So, I always remember to adjust my readings by 0.002 every time.

I helped a friend make this same wine and the starting SG you quoted seems high to me, for some reason a starting low range of 1.095 seemed weird to me, I have a lower starting number stuck in my head, perhaps 1.080 or 1.085, just based on helping my friend last week. I did attempt to contact friend, but he is out at a Derby Party (we live in Louisville), I was going to have him pull his instructions. So I went to the WE site and tried to find the instructions, is this it by chance?http://www.winexpert.com/images/Sel_Est_Inst.pdf

Regardless, your starting SG even with the addition of your sugar puts you in the desired high end range of 1.100...and I personally can't wait to see how my friend's kit turns out, and I am sure your will be just fabulous!!
 

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