Adding more sugar question

[8urt0n]

I am making my first batch of wine, and it's been 5 days, so it is still in the primary fermenter. It is a cheap 4 week merlot (I don't remember the exact brand), the SG was about 1080 before fermentation, and now it is about 1011 after 5 days. The instructions say to rack it when the SG is below 1010, so I will probably rack it tomorrow, or the next day.

The instructions also say that I don't have to add any sugar, because they've taken care of all the sugar levels I guess. Can I add sugar to the must before beginning the secondary fermentation stage, to possibly increase the alcohol content a little bit? If so, will this require more than the 4 weeks? Also, If i do this, the SG will change, so how would I determine the final alcohol level once it is done?

Thanks,
Josh

 

[Tom]

NO. Do not add sugar. Its your 1st wine so follow directions.
Now
1.080 is low thou so 1 cup of sugar wont hurt and it will not extend the time. If you drink alot of wine I would strongly suggest to buy a better kit. What you have is a entry level kit so dont expect a great wine.

 

[Wade E]

This will be a thin wine due to be a cheaper kit so upping the abv will hide even more flavor and thats why they keep the sg low on these smaller kits.

 

[8urt0n]

Cool ... thanks a lot for the info, I might add just a cup of sugar.

PS: I'm not really expecting a really good wine my first time, I just want something that will get me hammered .. lol .. and give me a little bit of experience before moving on to a better kit.

EDIT--- Also, I read in another post that you can add some kind of syrup or something to boost the flavor, what exactly is this stuff called? and , can I use this if my wine tastes bad?

 

[Wade E]

Im not sure if you are talking about a simple syrup which is just inverted sugar for sweetening a wine or if you are talking about an f-pac (flavor pac) which is basically another concentrate or fruit simmered down to either match or compliment the flavor with another, If using fruit we generally take 1/3 the amount of fruit we used to make the wine and simmer it in a pot to evaporate the water in the fruit so as not to dilute the wine down but add all the flavor of the fruit. You could also be talking about this product in the link below.
http://www.finevinewines.com/ProdASC.asp

 

[Malkore]

I really would NOT add ANY sugar for fermentation. What if the wine sucks? Was it the kits fault, a lack of sanitizing, or the cup of sugar that experienced brewers told you NOT to add?

Moral of the story: experimentation is good...but only to a degree. If you have no foundation of knowledge, you're not really experimenting...you're jsut 'screwing with things' in an uneducated way.

get a few kits under your belt so you're very comfortable, THEN start tweaking kits with raisins, banana soup, etc.

Sugar will do NOTHING except add a little alcohol, lower the over all flavor, and dry out the wine which could push it out of style.

 

[8urt0n]

I really would NOT add ANY sugar for fermentation. What if the wine sucks? Was it the kits fault, a lack of sanitizing, or the cup of sugar that experienced brewers told you NOT to add?

That's exactly what I was thinking too.
I just racked the wine to a carboy, and didn't add anything ... I just followed the directions because I didn't want to F anything up.

 

[8urt0n]

At the beginning of this post, I mentioned that I didn't remember the type of wine that it was. ... It is a Vintners reserve merlot.
has anyone tried this wine? is it any good?