Blackberry wine question

[daht]

Hello! DH made a 5 gal. batch of wine using blackberry syrup, 12 oz can Welch's frozen grape juice concentrate, and 22.5 cups sugar. The wine is good, but too sweet for him. He would like to know if he eliminates the Welch's, would the resulting wine be semi-sweet?


Thank you dotb

 

[summersolstice]

What kind of yeast and how much and what kind of syrup did he use? What was the starting gravity?Edited by: Rule G

 

[daht]

The syrup was 2 bottles of syrup from the grocery store, and wine yeast. Don't know the sg.

 

[jobe05]

daht: It would seem that your trying to make wine in a very privative style, which is ok for experimenting with different juices and fruits to see what you get. But even privative wine making may need a few of the modern necessities in order to achieve answers to questions.

I would highly recommend that you have a Hydrometer ($8) and a few packages of yeast specifically for wine making ($0.79 to $0.99 each)

Without a starting SG number, it's very hard to tell how sweet the must was when you started your wine, how much sugar was converted to alcohol, or how much sugar was left in the wine when completed.

Does your wine taste "Hot", like it's got a lot of alcohol, or is it sweet and not very "Hot" or strong alcohol tasting?

 

[pkcook]

daht,


To answer yourquestion, I don't believe that eliminating 12 ounces of grape concentrate will result in going from extremely sweet to semi-sweet in 5 gallons of wine(my opinion). As has been recommended in previous posts, a hydrometer is a "must" for wine making!


One mistake that most winemakers (me included) make when they start making wine is thinking that "more alcohol, better wine!" Especially with fruit wine, this is just not the case. Most fruit wine hasdelicate flavors and when they are subjected to high alcohol volumes, they get lost. This is where knowing the yeast can bevaluable. You can pick a yeast that has a low alcohol potential andleave some residual sugar. This is not exact science though. I prefer to add only enough sugar to reach a specific gravity for the alcohol level I want. Then let the wineferment dry and sweeten to taste. Much easier to get what you prefer this way.

 

[daht]

Hi...thanks for your answer! I will pass it on to DH...I think he is going to try using the hydrometer when he makes the batch of dry to "tone down" the sweet one (of course I told him to keep a few bottles of sweet for those of us who like "sugar cubes"!




Oh...almost forgot...the wine is not alcohol-y ...Edited by: daht