New to the hobby- what’s going on with my wine ?

[Chefbry68]

Hello All!
I’ve just begun making my own fruit wines (strawberry and blueberry). I’m trying to follow the dragon blood recipe. This is my first time ever. I started with a SG of 1.044 (perhaps a little low of a starting point ) I learned this after a few days into the first ferment on how to actually read a hydrometer. My must seemed to be doing what it’s supposed to do, I’ve been stirring daily , squeezing the bag , taking temps and sg levels. About a week later I’m now below 1.000 on the sg. I wondering how do I stop it from going lower so I can start the clearing and finishing the fermentation. It’s dropping like .004 to .006 points per day....will that taper off eventually ? What’s too low sg? Can I shock the yeast from going lower ?....I’m afraid it won’t stop going lower and lower ...am I on track for success?

 

[sour_grapes]

Don't fret! Things are fine.

As a home winemaker, you cannot really stop a fermentation. You should let it go to completion.

It will stop by itself shortly, because the yeast will run out of food. The final SG will be somewhere between roughly 0.990 and 0.997, say. In your case, I predict something in the 0.994 range.

The wine will be dry at this point. If you want your wine to be sweeter, you must "stabilize" it by adding potassium sorbate and potassium metabisulfite (known as "k-meta" around here). Then you can add sugar.

Congratulations, you are making wine!

 

[Chefbry68]

Alrighty , thank you Sour Grapes !

 

[RichardC]

Well, to complicate your life a little, would you prefer more alcohol or to get it over, and done with, asap? How many gallons of wine are you making?

1.044 will give about 6% alcohol.

 

[Chefbry68]

Hi there Richard C!
I would like to have around 10%ABV , these are both 3 gallon batches , I’m not in a rush...any pointers ?

 

[RichardC]

From reading ( I'm very junior,) 1lb of sugar in one gallon raises gravity by 0.046 points so, it'll raise 3 gallons by about 0.0153 points. 10 %ABV is about 1.078 so you'll need to raise gravity by 1.078-1.044= 0.034 points or about 2 lbs sugar ( syrup) in your 3 gallons of must.

Wait for the brighter guys to chime in. haha. Also ALWAYS add syrup to your must.. I've dumped in sugar and lost cups of must due to the sudden effervescence of CO2. Haha.

 

[G259]

Yes, that's what I would do too, add more sugar. If you download Fermcalc, you can figure out how much to add. Richard is probably correct, and I would add it. Hey, your first few will be learning experiences, so have fun! Keep the questions coming, someone else undoubtedly has the same one.

 

[KCCam]

Wait for the brighter guys to chime in. haha.

Hahaha, well, I’m not one of the more experienced people here, but I do have FermCalc, and I understand the concepts pretty well. @RichardC is right on with what I got — 2 lbs of sugar. If your wine ferments to 0.995 (stays constant there for 3 days), then a starting SG of 1.070 would give you 10% ABV. 2 lbs of sugar to 3 gal should do the trick. Take an SG reading before adding the sugar. You want to increase it by about 0.026. So if it is 0.998 before sugar, you’ll want it to be about 1.024 after. For the syrup, add 2 lbs sugar (about 4 1/2 cups) to about 2 1/4 cups water. Heat until the sugar is completely dissolved and let it cool. You can put the pot into some cold water to speed it up. Add about half to your must (in case we’re wrong about the amount) and stir it in for a couple of minutes. It’s heavier than the must, so stir well. Check the SG. If you’re half way there, add the rest, stir, and check the SG again.

Feel free to post a picture of your hydrometer in your test cylinder if you’re not sure you’re reading it correctly. I had trouble reading that stupid thing in the beginning too!

Also ALWAYS add syrup to your must.

That’s a very good point. I’m used to adding sugar for backsweetening, after fermentation is complete and the wine is degassed, where there is no risk of a volcano. Sugar can be used instead of syrup, but as noted, you have to add it slowly and carefully. It’s also more difficult to ensure sugar is dissolved completely.

Good luck. Keep us posted.

 

[RichardC]

Chefbry! Update?

 

[KCCam]

Chefbry! Update?

And picture? We love seeing that Dragon Blood.

 

[Chefbry68]

Chefbry! Update?

Hey there ! So far so good - I think . The day after I last posted - i added the syrup as most of you recommended to boost my levels back up to 1.044 . my SG should be under 1.000 within the next day or so as I’ve been stirring and checking every day it has been dropping. Soon we will be on the next step ....thanks for checking in on progress )

 

[Chefbry68]

And picture? We love seeing that Dragon Blood.

.....not the actual dragon blood , but it’s the dragon blood recipe (technique) using blueberry for 1 batch and strawberry for another

 

[KCCam]

.....not the actual dragon blood , but it’s the dragon blood recipe (technique) using blueberry for 1 batch and strawberry for another

Did you start with lemon juice? Following the recipe with any combination of fruit and/or berries... that makes it Dragon Blood.

 

[KCCam]

Did you start with lemon juice? Following the recipe with any combination of fruit and/or berries... that makes it Dragon Blood.

In fact, @dangerdave’s Dragonette doesn’t even use lemon juice — using acid blend instead. I think the key is the low amount of fruit used: 1-2 lbs per gallon and some sort of acidic base.

 

[Chefbry68]

Update .....they’ve been back sweetened per your instructions , all cleared up and bottling this week...

 

[KCCam]

Update .....they’ve been back sweetened per your instructions , all cleared up and bottling this week...

Thanks for the update. How much fruit did you end up using? Did you use the 1 lb per gallon the DB recipe calls for, or did you go with more? I know blueberry-only (affectionately known as Blue Blood) comes out darker than when using the triple berry blend, so I'm curious. It also shows how little red colour you get out of strawberries.

It's hard to see how clear they are from the picture, but it looks to me like they could still use some more time clearing. If you don't mind sediment in the bottle, go for it, otherwise you should be able to read a newspaper through your strawberry. Did you use Sparkolloid (as per DB recipe), or KC (kieselso/chitosan)?

 

[Chefbry68]

Thanks for the update. How much fruit did you end up using? Did you use the 1 lb per gallon the DB recipe calls for, or did you go with more? I know blueberry-only (affectionately known as Blue Blood) comes out darker than when using the triple berry blend, so I'm curious. It also shows how little red colour you get out of strawberries.

It's hard to see how clear they are from the picture, but it looks to me like they could still use some more time clearing. If you don't mind sediment in the bottle, go for it, otherwise you should be able to read a newspaper through your strawberry. Did you use Sparkolloid (as per DB recipe), or KC (kieselso/chitosan)?

Hey there KCCam, I used 3 pounds of each fruit for each batch, 1 pound just didn’t seem like it was enough. I did use sparkolloid . The pictures don’t do it much justice on the clarity ...I’ve bottled it all up last night , wine seems to have a “medicinal” taste to it , I’ve read not enough lemon juice in the must could be a culprit ?....the flavor of the berries came through but a little medicinal in the end ...

 

[KCCam]

wine seems to have a “medicinal” taste to it

I assume both batches exhibit this medicinal taste. Everyone's definition of "medicinal" is different, but my thoughts are:

• It's young. It will change (improve) during the coming months in the bottle.
• You may simply be objecting to the normal, characteristic flavour of Dragon Blood -- more likely because of the lemon juice as opposed to not enough of it. Not everyone likes Dragon Blood. Try a batch according to the recipe (1 lb per gallon of blueberry / blackberry / raspberry frozen blend) and 48 oz of Real Lemon, to get a baseline. If you don't like that, or at least see its potential after 6 months in the bottle, then DB might not be for you. I personally go for 32 oz Real Lemon and 1.5 to 2 times the berries.
• Possibly because of the higher ABV than you were expecting (see #1 below).
• Not enough, or too much backsweetening (see #2 & #5 below). Blueberry is especially highly acidic, I'm not sure about strawberry.
• Not likely, but it could be due to insufficient clearing, which would leave some fine lees in suspension (see #4 below).
• I like cough syrup, you mean you don't?

For my own curiosity, and to get a better feel for your final ABV:

• What was your SG before adding the sugar that brought it back up to 1.044?
• What was your SG after fermentation completed and before adding sorbate and sugar for backsweetening?
• What was your SG after backsweetening? Many people don't record this as it is just done to taste, but maybe you measured how many cups of sugar you added per gallon or per 3 gallon batch?

----------------------
OK, now for the book... I'm sorry, I am just the curious type, and wanted to make sure our terminology was the same, and to explain in more detail my comments above. Feel free to skip it. Maybe next time I write a book I'll use a "spoiler" block so it doesn't take up so much room.

i added the syrup as most of you recommended to boost my levels back up to 1.044 .

1. That's not quite what we recommended. @RichardC suggested taking it up to about 1.032, and I recommended 1.024. These are assuming your must was 0.998 before adding the sugar. (i.e., RichardC suggested raising the SG by 0.034 and I recommended raising it by 0.026.) 1.044 may give you closer to 12% ABV, depending on your SG at the time you added the sugar, and your final SG.

Update .....they’ve been back sweetened per your instructions , all cleared up and bottling this week...

2. I don't see any backsweetening instruction is this thread. If you are referring to the sugar added to bring the SG from below 1.000 back up to 1.044 again, that is not backsweetening (I'll talk about that in comment #5), it is "chaptalization," which is the technical term for adding sugar to an active fermentation to increase the final ABV. The distinction is very important: that sugar does not sweeten the wine. If you're referring to the backsweetening instructions in the Dragon Blood recipe, then ignore this comment.

I used 3 pounds of each fruit for each batch

3. You mean 3 pounds per gallon of each fruit for each batch, correct? For a total of 9 pounds of each fruit for each batch?

I did use sparkolloid .

4. Judging from that, your pictures, and the amount of time you waited, I think you will get some sediment in the bottles if left for more more than a couple of weeks. If you didn't use clear bottles you might not even notice it though. Anyone (at least to my knowledge) that has tried KC (Kieselsol & Chitosan / SuperKleer / DualFine) after using Sparkolloid never goes back. It gives very compact lees, very quickly (usually). My last 2 batches of DB are now dropping sediment in the bottle, even though I used SuperKleer, and they were crystal clear. (I posted pictures in the Dragon Blood thread.)

they’ve been back sweetened per your instructions ,

5. Backsweetening is sugar you add after stabilizing a completely finished fermentation (SG the same for 3 days in a row AND below about 1.000). Stabilizing refers to adding k-meta and sorbate to prevent the added sugar from fermenting again. As I stated above, you may know this already, and I apologize if you do, but from your posts I wasn't sure. Sugar tends to help cover up acidity & bitterness, did you do bench trials to determine the best level of sweetness?