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mykidsrnutz2

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Hi I just signed up. I am from Washington and there is a huge amount of wild blackberries. I had made everything I could think of with my berries and decided to try wine. Yikes! I looked around on the Internet and found recipes. I am making about 5 gallons. I have racked it 3 times to get clarity. I just bought a hydrometer and it measures the SG at .99. When reading the instructions it says to do SG while fermenting, which I did not do. So now I have questions: 1) what do I do now since it's the first time I checked, 2) how do I know how much alcohol it has ( I tasted it and it tastes like wine), 3) how can I make it sweeter without fermenting it again, 4) how long can I keep the bottles before it is no longer good. I'd like to bottle it ASAP.
 
You can get a good approximation of the alcohol level by taking a 100 ml sample of the wine, warming it to about 180 degrees F and holding it there for about 15-20 minutes. Alcohol will boil off at about 176 degrees F so the reduction in volume will approximate your ABV. At this point you will need to stabilize the wine before sweetening. You will need Potassium Sorbate and Potassium Metabisulfite to do this. Once it is stabilized, you can back-sweeten without fear of re-fermentation. If you bottle the stabilized wine and cork it well, your wine will last a long time.
 
First Welcome to the forum
Second, Rock gave about the best explanation I can think of.
If it was mine, I would just stabilize, (add Potassium meta phosphate and Potassium sorbate) then add simple syrup (2 part sugar 1 part water heated until dissolved) to taste. A sweet wine will be 1.150+ add a little and taste it, you can add more but you cant take it out. As far as the ABV, forget about it, learn from it, and correct it on the next batch.
 
You can get a good approximation of the alcohol level by taking a 100 ml sample of the wine, warming it to about 180 degrees F and holding it there for about 15-20 minutes. Alcohol will boil off at about 176 degrees F so the reduction in volume will approximate your ABV. At this point you will need to stabilize the wine before sweetening. You will need Potassium Sorbate and Potassium Metabisulfite to do this. Once it is stabilized, you can back-sweeten without fear of re-fermentation. If you bottle the stabilized wine and cork it well, your wine will last a long time.

That's what I was trying to find out. Thanks Rocky.
 
mykidsrnutz2 said:
Hi I just signed up. I am from Washington and there is a huge amount of wild blackberries. I had made everything I could think of with my berries and decided to try wine. Yikes! I looked around on the Internet and found recipes. I am making about 5 gallons. I have racked it 3 times to get clarity. I just bought a hydrometer and it measures the SG at .99. When reading the instructions it says to do SG while fermenting, which I did not do. So now I have questions: 1) what do I do now since it's the first time I checked, 2) how do I know how much alcohol it has ( I tasted it and it tastes like wine), 3) how can I make it sweeter without fermenting it again, 4) how long can I keep the bottles before it is no longer good. I'd like to bottle it ASAP.

Thanks y'all. I will try your suggestions. Next time I will know better. I have given a friend a taste and she liked it.
 
Rocky said:
You can get a good approximation of the alcohol level by taking a 100 ml sample of the wine, warming it to about 180 degrees F and holding it there for about 15-20 minutes. Alcohol will boil off at about 176 degrees F so the reduction in volume will approximate your ABV. At this point you will need to stabilize the wine before sweetening. You will need Potassium Sorbate and Potassium Metabisulfite to do this. Once it is stabilized, you can back-sweeten without fear of re-fermentation. If you bottle the stabilized wine and cork it well, your wine will last a long time.

Ok I did it and I had 1/2 oz (14.786 ml) remaining so does that mean my wine is 15 ABV?
 
mykidsrnutz2 said:
Ok I did it and I had 1/2 oz (14.786 ml) remaining so does that mean my wine is 15 ABV?

You did something wrong. Alcohol would boil off first leaving you water. So if you had 15% wine, you'd end up with 85mL of water.
 
novalou said:
You did something wrong. Alcohol would boil off first leaving you water. So if you had 15% wine, you'd end up with 85mL of water.

Thanks for your input. Without being obtuse you are saying that starting with 100 ml liquid (wine) then boiling it off and there is only 15% liquid left after 180 degrees simmer for 15 minutes that my wine is 85% water. So what did I do wrong to try to estimate the % of alcohol? I guess I'll just bottle it as is and know better next time. I must say it tastes like wine and my friend who sampled it said it was quite good.
 
mykidsrnutz2 said:
Thanks for your input. Without being obtuse you are saying that starting with 100 ml liquid (wine) then boiling it off and there is only 15% liquid left after 180 degrees simmer for 15 minutes that my wine is 85% water. So what did I do wrong to try to estimate the % of alcohol? I guess I'll just bottle it as is and know better next time. I must say it tastes like wine and my friend who sampled it said it was quite good.

Take another sample. Heat it to 180F. You should see the alcohol boil and vaporize. Once the liquid is still, measure your resulting volume. You should have 85-90mL left.
Subtract that from 100mL and that is your alcohol content.

Any volume less than 85mL, you boiled off some water.
 
Or you can drink it and enjoy it and not care what the ABV is mas long as you like it and you catch a nice buzz
 

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