Back sweetening

[foursons]

Hello Everyone

I wanted to make my Cab Sauv off-dry.
Its with a 4week kit, and its been 4 weeks (degassed with sorbate) and finally been filtered.

Here are the questions

What kind of sugar should I use? powered sugar (brown, white?), syrup, honey

If I already stabilized it and cleared it, do I have to do it once again after back sweetening it?

I heard that I have to do a trial of tasting in a smaller scale (in a glass) before adding it to the whole batch.
-How would I do the calculation?
-Ex. 1L of test wine + 30grams of sugar = good
Then 23L of wine batch will need 690 grams of sugar?


thank you~!

 

[Julie]

I would use just plain white sugar and don't add much. a good approximate is one cup of sugar will raise sg .018 per gallon. And don't raise it too much, take it to .996 first, taste and if you are close, leave it along for a couple of weeks and taste it again. Another think, I would take out some wine, not much and add your sugar to that and warm it up, do not boil, just warm it up enough to melt the sugar.

 

[tonyt]

Do a bench test. I have a calculation chart that I can post for you tomorrow. Keep in mind that every batch of wine will need different amounts of back sweetning. I use Torani Cane Syrup. Many folks made a simple syrup. Search simple syrup on WMT.

 

[salcoco]

use a sugar syrup of two cups regular table sugar to one cup hot water mix in a blender. let syrup cool. set up samples using a 1/4 cup=60ml use first sample as control. add 1/4 tsp to first, 1/2 tsp to second and 3/4 tsp to third , and so on, as necessary until sweetness achieved. each 1/4 tsp is 1.25ml. calculation is number of tsp X 1.25ml divided by 60ml= X the QTY of sugar syrup divided by 23,000ml solve for X. the value will be amount of sugar syrup in ML to be add to basic wine.Once amount is determined I would make a small batch say about 375ml add small amount of sorbate. let small sample sit for a week to insure fermentation does not start and taste is what you wanted to begin with. If everything is good add to basic wine. add sorbate. let wine sit for about two weeks to insure fermentation does not start,then bottle.

 

[cmason1957]

I didn't see anyone point this out, so I thought I would. Do not use powdered sugar, many of them are made with corn starch added to the sugar. This would be a really bad thing to put in your wine.

I generally just use good old cane sugar. After I have let the wine clear and then added potassium sorbate, remove some wine, pour the sugar in and stir. Top off with the wine I just took out, then let it sit for a few weeks to fully integrate.

 

[Noontime]

We've only back sweetened a few wines, but we just made a sugar syrup and added to taste. Bench testing is definitely the more comprehensive and accurate method, but ultimately it come to taste. Cane sugar is your best bet to add sweetness and not affect flavor (or create problems with corn starch, etc like cmason said).

Also a note on adding cane sugar...you want to make a syrup or make sure the wine is COMPLETELY degassed, otherwise the sugar crystals will create nucleation sites and your wine will erupt like Mentos in soda.

 

[Bibelljim]

The way I back sweetened...

Hi,

I used my friend's method here on sweetening wine. He made a video on how to do this on YouTube, too.

I happen to work with the guy, so he showed me how to do in person, because it was my first kit I kind of needed a little hand holding.. I did a Riesling and it came out great.