Wine Conditioner and Dessert type wines

[TNFISHRMAN]

My wife likes really sweet wines that usually require adding between 48-60 ounces of sugar syrup to sweeten to her taste. My question is would I hurt anything by adding up to 3 bottles of Wine Conditioner to the wine? I am curious because it already has stabilizers in it. Thanks

 

[Hippie]

You might start to get a wang in it from so much sorbate. A 16oz. bottle of wine conditioner makes 5 or 6 gallons of wine pretty darn sweet. Just use the required amount of sorbate with the sulphite when you stabilize, then next racking sweeten it up up with sugar to her taste. We are talking about a scratch wine, right?

 

[TNFISHRMAN]

Thanks for the info. Hippie! My wife likes really really sweet wine. So I assume that if I need to sweeten the wine more that I should use my own syrup mixture rather than add another bottle of conditioner? Also, I am assuming that there is not any need to add additional Sorbate or sulfite to a 6 gal batch after adding one bottle of conditioner or does it not have it in it????Edited by: TNFISHRMAN

 

[Hippie]

I still don't know if we are talking about a kit or a scratch batch. If it is a kit, all the sorbate and sulphite it needs should be in the pack labeled stabilizer. If it is either kit or scratch and you have already added a bottle of conditioner, you shouldn't need any more sorbate. I would not add any more conditioner. I don't know if the conditioner you used has sulphite also or just sorbate. If it is a kit, you could end up with more sulphite and sorbate than you need and the taste will be horrible. Did you get the wine conditioner from George?

 

[TNFISHRMAN]

Sorry about not answering your question. I am not sure what you mean by scratch wine? One of the batches I have going is a kit and the other is a batch that I am making from concentrated concord juice. The conditioner did come from George. From what I understand then one bottle of conditioner has enough sorbate for a 6 gallon batch. Sorry to be so confusing

 

[Hippie]

Ok. We just need to wait for George to tell us exactly what is in the wine conditioner. I thinkthe kit has plenty of sulphite and sorbate to stabilize it without adding more. George will know more about that than I. Scratch wines are wines made from scratch. Your concord is a scratch wine.

 

[TNFISHRMAN]

Hippie, The bottle of wine conditioner is from George (wine expert brand) the ingredients say that it is syrup and Sorbate only. Thanks for helping me understand what Scratch wine was.

 

[Hippie]

If you add too much of that wine conditioner you will get way too much sorbate in the wine and it will taste bad, not to mention if it is bad for you, no idea. Warm some of the wine on the stovetop and melt sugar in it, do not boil, add to the wine to taste. Start out with maybe a half cup of sugar per gallon of wine with the same volume of wine on the stove as sugar. Add it to the clean and sanitized carboy and rack onto it. don't rack just to sweeten, but wait until you need to rack.

 

[Hi In The Pines]

ok, Hippie. I was testing and tasting my blueberry wine today. I cant believe that in a little over a weeks time, its so clarified.Last week I added the sorbate and K-meta. Its clear as a light red sheet of glass. Now I want to sweeten it and I guess rack it again off the rest of the sediment. Can I sweeten it as you suggested above and then let it age again before bottling? or do I have to bottle it after its been sweetened??

 

[Hippie]

Why are you wanting to rack again so soon? If you rack now, you will likely be wanting to rack again soon after. You will be better off waiting 3-4 weeks and let alot more settling occur. We don't want to rack more than is necessary. Yes, you can sweeten as above. Lynn states his wife likes very sweet wines, so I suggested he start with a half cup of sugar per gallon. I seldom sweeten more than a quarter cup sugar per gallon of finished wine. I am willing to bet without looking at your wine that as clear as you think it is now, it will get even clearer.


Does this help?

 

[Hi In The Pines]

Perfecto!