Reducing Alcohol content

Originally I wanted the wine to end up with 14-14.5% alcohol.

The starting SG was 1.115 (somehow it didn't looked too much to me at that point...). And now I calculate: 1.115–0.992=123, 123/7.4=16.5% alcohol.
A bit too high, I'd like something along 14.5%.

What are my options? Diluting? With what? When?

The wine is currently in a carboy with SG ~1.030 at the moment. Anything to do while it's still fermenting or it doesn't matter?

domaso said:

Originally I wanted the wine to end up with 14-14.5% alcohol.

The starting SG was 1.115 (somehow it didn't looked too much to me at that point...). And now I calculate: 1.115–0.992=123, 123/7.4=16.5% alcohol.
A bit too high, I'd like something along 14.5%.

What are my options? Diluting? With what? When?

The wine is currently in a carboy with SG ~1.030 at the moment. Anything to do while it's still fermenting or it doesn't matter?

Click to expand...

I am currently fermenting my first batch of blackberry wine.
Is this your first time too? If you have a thread on your wine please tell me, you seem to be at a similar stage as me. I would love to watch your progress too! Mine is www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=50635

My must was reading 1.114. I added a bottle and a half of blueberry juice which diluted the must to 1.112 PRE-fermentation.
I regret starting my must so strong. As I did more research, I read multiple times that most fruit wines should be 10%ish in ABV. More than 12%, the alcohol taste will overpower your fruit. I agree, I think if the alcohol content is too high it might taste awful. I don't want to wait few months to taste something bad. I recommend you rethink about how much ABV you want again if you find a solution.

If my wine turns out much too strong, I am thinking of back sweetening some of my wine with my favourite juice.

What are you making? You can always add a lower SG liquid to your volume to dilute it a little. Or, simply make a second batch, targeting 13-14% and blend. You may not get to .992 either.

There is not much you can easily do. Maybe racking it now (get it off the sediment) may increase the chance of the fermentation ending early.

What yeast did you use? If not EC-1118, you have a chance it will stop at 14% abv, leaving you around SG 1.007, which is starting to get sweet.

It's black currant wine. The yeast I used was "Cabernet Sauvignon Vintage Red" ("Enartis", Italian brand), it says it has alcohol tolerance of 16%.

I just had an idea – what about stopping the fermentation in the semi-dry range, somewhere like 1.005? (I actually almost always prefer very slightly semi-dry over totally dry). That way I would end up roughly 14.5%. I'm also going to bulk age with french oak chips for a month or two. I'm going for "full-boddied/rich-taste" kind of wine that's why I'm aiming for higher alcohol.

However I've never done this stopping fermentation thing... Do I use Campden or something else? How much of it is needed to completely kill the existing yeast?

Very hard to stop an active fermentation. If I were going to try, here is what I would do (I have no idea if it would work):

Rack off as much sediment as you can.
Dose it with 1/2 tsp K-meta for 5-6 gallons of wine.
Also add 3.75 tsp K-sorbate.

Rack it again in a few days, and every few days after that to get it off the sediment (live yeast). Check the SG prior to each racking. Hopefully it stabilizes after about 2 weeks, and you can resume normal programming.

If you have a big enough fridge, cooling it to near freezing would help to inactivate the yeast.

Here's a thought experiment. You could check out Vitner's Harvest Blackberry juice and consider making a batch of the same volume as the volume you have made that you think may be too high in sugar (and so potentially with too high an ABV) then add only enough sugar so that when you blend the two you get a total ABV of around 11 or 12 %.

Meh, I just thought, what the hell... I'll just leave it. Maybe rack from majority of sediment after a couple of days.
I'm looking to age it in bottles for 3-4 years (first recipe here). Hopefully it will smooth out a little after that time. If not, I'll have some pretty strong/effective and cheap booze

BernardSmith said:

Here's a thought experiment. You could check out Vitner's Harvest Blackberry juice and consider making a batch of the same volume as the volume you have made that you think may be too high in sugar (and so potentially with too high an ABV) then add only enough sugar so that when you blend the two you get a total ABV of around 11 or 12 %.

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Well the batch of my wine is 8 gallons, so I'm not really tempted to make another ~8 gallons just for diluting. 16 gallons of one wine is a bit much for me Also I don't really like the idea of mixing black currant and blackberry juice, I was aiming for black currant only wine..)

My mistake - sorry... I misread your wine and thought the VH was the same fruit as you were using.. apologies...

VH does however make a black currant juice (just bottled it last night!) if i remember correctly if you weren't to add the sugar to the juice it would end up around 8% maybe less. but if you were to make 3 gallons of that and mix it with your 8 gallons of 16.5% you would end up around 14%. just a thought.
Black currant has made an excellent wine for me, I think you'll like this one!

I would rack and pull a gallon out. Fill with water. Let it ferment dry, leaving you at 14.5 abv. Trying to stop an active ferment and storing it for 3-4 years may not be compatible.

Rack it off present must then let it go as dry as it will (presuming you do not want to treat with sorbate). Search for a compatible/ low alcohol grape wine, ie. a Concord maybe? Experiment with blending the two to get a satisfying flavor/alcohol level then proceed to age it. Left to itself, I don't think the alcohol level would reduce much for quite a long time.

Thanks for the tips guys. I haven't mentioned that I'm in Europe not US and I can't really find any black currant juice anywhere, so the blending thing won't work. (well I've found it in one place but it's $15 for 0.5 liter bottle).

I was thinking about replacing part of it with water like NorCal suggested, however the wine is already watered down really heavily (that was the recipe) – 1/3 currants 2/3 water. So I don't want to water it down even more...

Also, just curious - how does racking early help? I always thought the sediment at the bottom is already "consumed" + dead yeast that won't produce more alcohol anyway.

What's the worst thing that could happen? If the wine gets to 16-16.5% abv, does it mean it will be ugly/undrinkable? Black currants have pretty heavy taste/aroma, so I'm hoping maybe it would do alright with higher alcohol?

domaso said:

Thanks for the tips guys. I haven't mentioned that I'm in Europe not US and I can't really find any black currant juice anywhere, so the blending thing won't work. (well I've found it in one place but it's $15 for 0.5 liter bottle).

Click to expand...

Can you get hold of Ribena? Is that not made from blackcurrants?

Ok, so this black currant wine is still fermenting after 2+ months!
The airlock activity stopped nearly a month ago, I racked from sediment, and measured the SG. It was still at 1.023 and the alcohol at that point was ~12.5%, I tasted and it's really nice. Since it was really sweet, I've made a yeast starter from half packet of yeast and repitched to the 1.023/12.5% wine (also added some yeast nutrient). It started fermenting again slowly, and it continues to this day (about 6 bubbles a minute in the airlock and there is a visible CO2 activity in the carboy and the layer of foam in the neck).

My question - are there any downsides of wine fermentation taking that long? I reckon it won't probably stop for another month at least, so that will total at 3 months or more of fermentation.
(I already racked 2 or 3 times and the layer of sediment at the bottom is very thin)