Concord grapes, sugar addition - need advice

[olo1]

Hi guys,

I've been lurking and reading forum for a while but now I need some advice with my first batch from concord grapes.

I have roughly 100L of prepared must, SG reading 1050, but I'm not sure how much juice it will yield so my problem is with addition of sugar.

Tomorrow I'm planning to add yest starter but I'm not sure if I can add sugar for secondary fermentation or do I have to (should I?) add some for primary fermentation?

If I should add sugar for primary fermentation how can I calculate how much if I'm not sure how much juice will I have to start with?

I'm not following any recipe so any advice guys? I'm aiming at 1100SG and do my calculations based on that.

 

[Arne]

You are at 1.050 and want to wind up at 1.100. Without knowing the amount of liquid we can't tell you how much sugar is needed to bring it up. I would probably make some simple syrup (one part water to 2 parts sugar, simmered til the sugar melts) and add it to the must. Stir it in, check the s.g. add some more and check til you get to approx. 1.100. Best I can do for you. Arne.

 

[jamesngalveston]

add sugar check with Hydro, if not where you want the sg, add more, check again.

 

[IdahoWino]

I have Concord Grapes myself and am just a beginner at wine-making! I am about to the point of starting to clear my first batch. The info on this forum is my main source of help and it is going well.

My research before I started showed that the Concords would have lower sugar and higher acid than what I wanted to start out with. Testing the must before fermentation showed that to be true.
My procedure was to keep heating distilled water in a pan to dissolve sugar and adding it to the must and then testing each time with the hydrometer until the SG was 1.10. Fortunately also the amount of added water diluted the acid level to about 0.65 which was also needed.
If I am doing it right and understand correctly you really need an acid testing kit as well as a hydrometer and get both acid level and SP correct in the must before pitching the yeast in a concord grape wine.

I steamed juiced my grapes so didn't need to add sulfates to the must to kill wild yeast but that is something to look at too if you used a press.

 

[salcoco]

rule of thumb is 15lbs of grapes will give you 1 gallon of finished wine. some people use 12lbs. regardless use this computation to determine amount of sugar to add. measuring sg as you go along is great advice

 

[Turock]

The best way to test acid is with a PH meter. Concord will come in around 3.2 or so, maybe a tad lower in acidic soils. We use calcium carbonate pre-ferment to bring the PH to 3.4 You should do acid adjustments pre-ferment Must is more forgiving than wine is, and making pre-ferment adjustments allows everything to incorporate much better.

100# of concord will yield about 10 gallons of wine. So you can base all your chemical additions on the 10 gallons. But you can be a little conservative with the additions, and figure anywhere between 9-10 gallons. Then you won't over-add anything.

It's hard to say how much sugar to need to raise the brix to the potential alcohol you want. Depends on the sugars in the grapes. Add sugar--or the simple sugar you're making to bring the brix where you want it. You are never adjusting for secondary fermentation. Secondary fermentation is a life all its own and is not considered when you're at the primary. The primary is where you are designing the wine--what you do there is what you're going to end up with. Now that being said, there are adjustments that you can tweak in the secondary. But you really don't want to be making acid corrections in the post ferment because those are harder to do and if the PH is way off, it becomes impossible to change it much. So do all the work at the primary and you will end up with a well-balanced wine that you're not fighting with in the post-ferment.

 

[olo1]

some great advice here! Thank you!