have i added too much water to the primary?

[murphyaii]

the wine kit is a magnum pinot grigio.
the instructions say to top it up after the grape juice is added to 23 litres.
i topped it up to 25 litres to allow for loss of juice after racking a few times.
did i do wrong?

 

[sour_grapes]

Well, "wrong" is a strong term. Your wine will likely be a bit thinner/weaker than designed, but not exceedingly so. (It is about an 8% dilution.)

Try this experiment: take two glasses of wine, and add, say, 125 mL to each. Then have a friend add 10 mL to one of them (without your knowing which was which). Then taste each of them, and see if you can tell which was which.

 

[DoctorCAD]

Adjust the starting SG to 1.090 (or whatever your kits instructions indicate) and you should be good.

 

[bkisel]

You would have done better to have followed the directions. Topping off is best done later and I personally would not top off a 23L batch with more than 500ML (.5L) of water. Many folks will not even top of with any water but rather a like or similar wine. Others will rack to a 5 gallon carboy and another vessel for the overage. Still others will "top off" by displacing the wine with sanitized glass marbles. Sometimes a combination of these techniques will be used.

 

[murphyaii]

i added about.05 % abv at the start as it was 1.080

sg was 1.085 after sugar was added

i just transferred it to the secondary plastic pet carboy of 5 litres european.

sg is now 1

i'd say it will be fine just a bit diluted as it was fermenting after the water addition