Making a sweet wine?

[FlTropical]

This will be my first time making wine. I am making 5 gallons of Lychee. I have been reading various online and printed information and one thing still eludes me a little. Sweetening. My wife and I prefer non-dry, sweet wines. From what I gather there are two ways to accomplish this:

1.) back sweeten: Add sugar at the end (and an inhibitor). This seems to make the most sense, however making wine bombs worries me a little

2.) stop it early: Add more sugar than I need up front and stop it around 12%, hoping it is nice and sweet (add inhibitor.. I think).

How would I calculate method 2? The last thing I want is a sweet high % wine, or a dry non sweet wine. Any tips or calculations greatly appreciated.

 

[Deezil]

Basically... You're not "stopping" a fermentation..

The safe option is to ferment your wine dry, add potassium metabisulfite & potassium sorbate, wait a week & backsweeten to your liking. The metabisulfite helps the sorbate inhibit the yeast better - cant remember exactly how at the moment, but i know sorbate works better in the presence of metabisulfite.

No ones gonna stop you from adding 18% abv worth of sugar and using a 12% yeast, but thats a shot in the dark. Bottle bombs are more likely to happen in this way than they are if you properly sorbate your batch of wine.

 

[winemaker_3352]

I agree - you are not really stopping fermentation - you are just shocking it enough that it is not active - but it can reactivate.

Ferment to dry - once done fermenting - rack off the lees and add the k-meta and sorbate in. Wait a week and then backsweeten to you likings.

If you are adding in a clarifier wait until after you have backsweetened.

Get your starting SG at 1.085 - that way your abv will be around 11-12% when dry.

 

[ibglowin]

I am thinking about doing a little experiment on some of my wine from fresh grapes at some point. It has fermented to dry (0.996) and is currently bulk aging, and I would like to backsweeten to 1.000 or perhaps 1.002 and see how this effects the flavor profile.

Is their a handy dandy backsweetening calculator that tells you how much inverted sugar to add?

 

[sly22guy]

The winecalc in this thread will do that as i recall. Its a great little calculator and i use it all the time. of course im on my work computer now and can't pull it up to check. But i know it will do a ton of stuff

http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11337

 

[ibglowin]

Thanks much!

 

[FlTropical]

Thank you all for the details.

It is clear to me now that option 1 is the clear answer. I think I am just a put put off by how dry, tart and shocking the fruit wines are that my father in law makes so I am a bit paranoid. I really want to impress my wife

So how do I determine how much to back sweeten it at the end? Can I just add some, stir, taste, repeat as needed?

 

[closetwine]

Thank you all for the details.

So how do I determine how much to back sweeten it at the end? Can I just add some, stir, taste, repeat as needed?

That's the best way t oget it too YOUR tastes, and Wife's!

 

[Julie]

.....So how do I determine how much to back sweeten it at the end? Can I just add some, stir, taste, repeat as needed?

Yes you can do it this way but take a reading when you have it where you would like it. This way you will know for the next time how far to backsweeten.

 

[FlTropical]

Thank you all, sometimes google just does not answer these questions for me.

So somehow I ended up at 1.0975 rather than 1.085. Hoping this does not affect it too much. My Hydrometer says up to 15%, a little much for me but for a first try I can live with it.

 

[Julie]

You can always add some water and more lychee