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Floandgary

Bottle at a time
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,,,Plain sugar or compatable Varietal? Have some Moscato which I K-meta'd and sorbated @1.000. Degassed and 3 weeks it's still at 1.000. Would like it a little sweeter. The lab is set up,,,,what ingrediants to play with??:rdo
 
I have always used simple syrup from inverted sugar or an F-pack if is was a fruit wine.
Something I have wanted to try but have not done yet is to put a couple pounds of white raisins in the hand grinder then boil them over the stove for a few hours to extract the grape sugers then use that syrup to back sweeten.
 
Flo what size carboy? Lets assume it's 5-6 gallons. Add 1/4 tsp of meta and 1/2 tsp per gallon of sorbate. Determine the sugar needed. Heat 3-4 cups of wine in the microwave just hot enough so you don't want to touch it. Then stir your sugar into this wine to dissolve. In a few minutes once it's cooled down to within 10* of your other wine, blend it back in.

This is the way I do it. There are other ways also. I would not just dump the sugar in and stir though.
 
Like the idea of experimenting with alternative sugar sources (raisins, fruits eg.) but think for the first go at it I'll stick with plain old granulated.. Thanks for feedback.
 
Did 1 1/2c sugar and @ 1/2c juice from jar of peaches to the 6gal Moscato. Went from 1.000S/G to 1.002S/G. Chilled a glass and Flo(taster)and Gary(mixer) are happy. If I'm not mistaken, THAT is the goal ;)
 
Flo, did you start with juice, grapes or a kit? The Moscato juice that I used to make my Moscato turned out great, the perfect sweetness, I could kick myself for using the whole 5 gallons to make Asti type Spumante!
 
LOL, Gary, I believe the goal is for you to make this wine that is going to keep Flo happy so you can now make more of the wines that you like :)

I liked that idea of the peach in the moscato.
 
Tom,, the story behind the Moscato is this,,,, it is a 6gal juice bucket which I fermented down to @1.000 then K-meta'd and sorbated. It seemed to be at a good sweetness there. Anyway, racked it, degassed and let it set for a week or two to start clearing. Racked again and tasted and decided it might need to be a little sweeter and thus the questions about back sweetening. Did not use much of the peach juice so I haven't noticed any clouding. I have some Sparkelloid I might try if necessary, but just leaving it alone seems to work so far. AND as I said Flo likes it, sooooo!! Also I've been instructed to let fermentation go ALL THE WAY DOWN and then back-sweeten. Another lesson learned. Time is on our side..
 
Ah yes, Time the most miss understood ingredient in wine.

This wine sounds good, I think next year I'll try a Moscato for the one juice bucket I do each year. I like the idea of adding a little peach.
 
Floandgary, I made a Muscat, fermented it to dry (i.e. SG 0.992), stabilized it with k-meta and k-sorbate and then added a 49 oz. can of Apricot Puree. It is a little too sweet for me (I don't like my wine "dry," I like it "arid") but people who prefer a little sweetness really love it. There are a number of fruit purees available so one would have a lot of options.
 
You should make a few bottles of the peach Moscato, sparkling!..Now that sounds great!
 
I'd use plain sugar. Many folks here just stir the sugar directly into their wine. It takes some stirring that way, though, so it will go faster with the warm wine syrup suggestion.

When I stir sugar directly into the wine, I let it sit a couple days afterward to make sure it all dissolves befort bottling. Might give it a stir during the wait for fun.

I like a real sweet moscato ... mmmm! Best of luck with it!
 
I finished a batch of Niagara made from Walkers juice. I back sweetened with invert sugar and a few cans of Welches White grape juice. It tasted great, so I bottled it. Now when I open a bottle, after a few months, it's sweeter then when I bottled originally.
So, be sure to under sweeten a little, because it will get sweeter with age. Anyone else experience this?
 

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