fabrictodyefor
Senior Member
- Joined
- Aug 29, 2013
- Messages
- 374
- Reaction score
- 76
Hope all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I haven't been on WMT in months, life got in the way, but it is nice to smell fermenting wine again! I made a plum wine, Sept, 2013. My 3rd wine....realized it was not enough fruit and starting sg was a little high. So have racked it many times and tasted many times. No surprise the first taste was all alcohol, with a hint of plum. I decided after 14 months I would try an f-pak. So, I simmered down a jar of my home canned plums and 2 pint jars of my homemade plum jam. We tried it on Thanksgiving and it is now awesome. A little sweeter than I would have thought, but jam does have a lot of sugar! So.....starting sg, 1.102, ending sg of 1.000, now sg reading of 1.030, so does that make my alcohol content 9.75% alcohol by volume? rather than the 13.5% abv it was before I added the f-pak? If so am I still ok to bottle this? I had read somewhere wine should be 10%.....
On another note, I'm attempting another batch of plum. I had read through many old posts and found that many do not add any water to plums! So I thawed my 42 lbs of plums....added k-meta...when almost thawed added pectic enzyme and some sugar, let sit till fully thawed, but even with a wire mesh strainer I could not get enough "juice" to get an sg reading. So added 1 1/2 gallons of water and even though it was still a very thick must, added enough sugar to get to 1.084...I thought. 24 hours after I pitched the yeast I had an sg reading of 1.090...it had a nice cap and I was able to scoop down and get a more liquidy sample of the must. I can tell it is working fine, but I probably don't have an accurate reading of my starting sg...it is now at 1.080, 2 days after I pitched the yeast. It is cool in my basement and I want a slower ferment, so as long as it is working I am content with a slow ferment. How do you get a reading with a thick must?
Thanks for comments and helpful hints!
On another note, I'm attempting another batch of plum. I had read through many old posts and found that many do not add any water to plums! So I thawed my 42 lbs of plums....added k-meta...when almost thawed added pectic enzyme and some sugar, let sit till fully thawed, but even with a wire mesh strainer I could not get enough "juice" to get an sg reading. So added 1 1/2 gallons of water and even though it was still a very thick must, added enough sugar to get to 1.084...I thought. 24 hours after I pitched the yeast I had an sg reading of 1.090...it had a nice cap and I was able to scoop down and get a more liquidy sample of the must. I can tell it is working fine, but I probably don't have an accurate reading of my starting sg...it is now at 1.080, 2 days after I pitched the yeast. It is cool in my basement and I want a slower ferment, so as long as it is working I am content with a slow ferment. How do you get a reading with a thick must?
Thanks for comments and helpful hints!