Sg = 0.985???

[botigol]

Hi everybody,

I racked a passion fruit wine yesterday and its SG was really low from what I have read and seen so far. The first time that I measured it and saw that it was at 0.985 I figured that I had made a mistake, but I pulled a fesh sample and measured twice more with the same result. The wine seems fine, except that it is ridiculously dry and too tart (probably because I used only passion fruit juice). Is there anything that I need to be aware of with an SG this low or is it just that I will need to backsweeten in order to make it more palatable?

Thanks!

 

[GreginND]

Was your starting gravity very high? It may be hat you have a lot of alcohol.


Have you calibrated your hydrometer lately? Checked with another hydrometer?

 

[BernardSmith]

How accurate is your hydrometer? At what temperature is the wine? These two factors will affect your reading.

 

[Julie]

You fermented to dry and most fruit wines usually need to be backsweeten. Check your acid and make sure that is ok.

 

[botigol]

Good call on calibrating...this is a new hydrometer, my first one recently met an untimely end. I just checked, offhand it looks like it might be just slightly off; in 56F filtered water it is reading about 0.999 (it is between the marks for 0.998 and 1.000). The hydrometer is calibrated to 60F per its reference sheet. The wine was right about 64F when I took the readings. My starting gravity was actully just a bit low at 1.074 and the alcohol level didn't taste out of balance yesterday, so my best guess is that the calculated 11.68% abv could be accurate. I will try to test the acid this afternoon.

 

[botigol]

Unfortunately this is no longer an issue. I have been using the back of my stir paddle to stir my one gallon jugs; it has always been tight getting it in and out, but it worked. Well, this time it didn't and the neck of the jug broke in half sending glass everywhere. Luckily no blood and this was only a small batch, but I am still disappointed.

Thanks for helping me work through my questions!

 

[Bartman]

Oh, that's a tough loss. It probably made quite a mess!

 

[RegionRat]

Was your starting gravity very high? It may be hat you have a lot of alcohol.


Have you calibrated your hydrometer lately? Checked with another hydrometer?

How does one calibrate a hydrometer?

RR

EDIT.

I googled, 'how to calibrate a hydrometer" and all I got was calibrating cigar humidor hydrometers. After asking the question here I googled, ' How to calibrate a wine making hydrometer" and came up with this:

How to calibrate a wine making hydrometer

Guess I answered my own question.

RR

 

[botigol]

Yeah Bart, it wasn't good. I have to say that the glass flew a lot further than I would have thought. Just one of those lessons that you re-learn periodically, if there is broken glass make sure to clean beyond where you think it went. Hopefully I won't re-learn it again anytime soon!