Actual starting SG with rasins

[Woodbee]

Greetings All. A question here on starting SG. In trying to tweak the SG to a desired level, how do you figure in the sugar content of rasins or other sweet fleshy ingredents added to your must? I just started a couple of different batches of Elderberry must that each called for different amounts of rasins. They will each give off their sugar content at some point and both will be different. Are there allowances used for figuring this.
Thanks Brad

 

[Tom]

If you just want to tweak it up a little you don't need raisins to do it. GOOGLE WineCalc and download the program. All you need to do is put in your SG and where you want the SG. It will tell you how much sugar to add.
As far as the raisins. 1 pound will not raise it that much in a 6 gallon batch

 

[Woodbee]

My concern is my SG getting too high. The rasins or apples or other berries contain surgars that will be released during fermentation raising the surgar content as the first week or so passes. I am not adding these to tweak the musts Sg but for flavors. One of my batches got a pound and the other got three pounds. The Elderberries also contain a small amount of sugar that won't be truly mixed in until I squeeze them out towards the end of my primary stages. I am afraid of wine not fermenting to dry with the extra sugars.

 

[smurfe]

The raisins won't give as much sugar as you might think. Most of the sugar in grapes is in the juice, not the pulp which is mostly what the raisin is. I have no idea what the Specific Gravity increase you will obtain from "x" amount of raisins as you must know the SG of the specific raisins to assess this. This information os out there though as I remember reading this same question before somewhere before and someone gave a specific answer. Are you adding them whole or chopped? The addition of raisins are more for body and flavor more than anything else. I will hunt around and see if I can dig up the answer.

 

[canoe]

The raisins won't give as much sugar as you might think. Most of the sugar in grapes is in the juice, not the pulp which is mostly what the raisin is. I have no idea what the Specific Gravity increase you will obtain from "x" amount of raisins as you must know the SG of the specific raisins to assess this. This information os out there though as I remember reading this same question before somewhere before and someone gave a specific answer. Are you adding them whole or chopped? The addition of raisins are more for body and flavor more than anything else. I will hunt around and see if I can dig up the answer.

According to Lucs blog they are about 60% sugar.

Bill

 

[smurfe]

I use a lot of raisins. I don't get a 60% rise in SG. You are going to get some though like I said. I just don't know how much. It isn't "that" much. You get more if the raisins are chopped over just throwing them in whole. Maybe it was a post by Luc that I had remembered reading.

 

[Luc]

Off course you will not get a raise of 60% in your SG when
adding raisins.

However the raisins contain about 60% sugar.
Meaning that if you add 200 gram raisins you will add about
120 gram sugar.

It is even mentioned on the packaging over here: 100 gram raisins contain 60 gram sugar.

The sugar will leech out gradually during pulp fermentation.

Luc