Everything is the same but the Hydrometer reading?

montanaWineGuy · Oct 10, 2015

Yesterday I cut up the apples, added the same 15lbs of sugar, boiled the water, later I added some Pectin Enzyme, tannin and acid blend. This morning prior to adding the Yeast Nutrient I measured the SG of each 6+ gallon fermentation bucket. One was 1.110 and the other was 1.090.

What might account for the difference?

sour_grapes · Oct 10, 2015

One obvious possibility is different sugar levels amongst your apples. However, that is quite a large difference in SG. The only other possibility I can think of is "user error."

montanaWineGuy · Oct 10, 2015

sour_grapes said:
One obvious possibility is different sugar levels amongst your apples. However, that is quite a large difference in SG. The only other possibility I can think of is "user error."

You are probably right about that.

I'm just glad to see both as high as they were. All previous wine I use a 1/3 less sugar. Looks like I'll have some wine of the correct Alcohol % now, that will last longer and maybe even taste better.

sour_grapes · Oct 10, 2015

Hey, could you average these? Get a third bucket, pour half of each of your original buckets into it, then combine the second half of each? Personally, I would rather have all of the wine by 13.8% than half be 12.5% and half be 15%.

salcoco · Oct 11, 2015

may be all of the sugar has not dissolved in the lower sg bucket. I would ferment and do any blending post fermentation when you an have greater control.

Runningwolf · Oct 11, 2015

Did you measure the sg in both buckets before adding sugar. It's also possible one bucket stared with wild yeast already. I'm with the poster above though, sugar probably not thoroughly mixed.

montanaWineGuy · Oct 11, 2015

Runningwolf said:
Did you measure the sg in both buckets before adding sugar. It's also possible one bucket stared with wild yeast already. I'm with the poster above though, sugar probably not thoroughly mixed.

Me too.

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