Sweetening

[u01dtj6]

Hi!


Sorry, I may be a little dumb here, but can any of you guys help solve some confusion?


I have been reading the paragraph on Sweetening on http://www.geocities.com/NapaValley/8280/sugar.htmland they suggest this table as a guideline to sweetening your wine.



<TABLE cellSpacing=1 cellPadding=2 width=220 border=3 ="#c2eeff"><T>
<T>
<TR>
<TH colSpan=2>Sweetening</TH>
<TR>
<TD vAlign=top align=middle width="50%">Sweetness
</TD>
<TD vAlign=top align=middle width="50%">SG</TD></TR>
<TR>
<TD vAlign=top align=left width="50%">Dry</TD>
<TD vAlign=top align=right width="50%">&lt;1000</TD></TR>
<TR>
<TD vAlign=top align=left width="50%">Medium dry</TD>
<TD vAlign=top align=right width="50%">1000-1010</TD></TR>
<TR>
<TD vAlign=top align=left width="50%">Medium sweet</TD>
<TD vAlign=top align=right width="50%">1010-1020</TD></TR>
<TR>
<TD vAlign=top align=left width="50%">Sweet</TD>
<TD vAlign=top align=right width="50%">1020-1030</TD></TR>
<TR>
<TD vAlign=top align=left width="50%">Dessert</TD>
<TD vAlign=top align=right width="50%">1030-1040</TD></TR></TR></T></T></TABLE>


However, please forgive me for my stupidity, but surely if you have a starting SG of even 1030, that's not going to be sweet? And lacking in abv?


And the formula
(1015 - 995) * 2.7 * 10 = 540 g


doesn't make much sense. Where does the x2.7 and x10 come from? Can anyone help me alleviate this problem?


DJ

 

[Joseph1]

DJ,<?amespace prefix = o ns = "urnchemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

The table does not reflect the starting specific gravity of the wine rather it attempts to correlate the amount of residual sugar in a finished wine to specific gravity. Based upon the table a medium dry wine would have a specific gravity between 1000 and 1010. Note that all of the specific gravity numbers in the table and the formula have been multiplied by 1,000 so that a specific gravity of 1.010 is shown as 1010 (makes the math easier).

The formula calculates the amount of sugar that needs to be added to the finished wine to bring it to the desired sweetness level as indicated in the table. In his example he has 10 liters of wine that has a specific gravity of 995 and he wants a medium sweet wine.

The formula: (1015 – 995) * 2.7 * 10 = 540g

The 1015 is the target specific gravity and is the center of the range for a medium sweet wine. The 995 is the specific gravity of the finished wine. 2.7 is the number of grams of sugar needed to raise the specific gravity of the finished wine by 1. Finally he is making this adjustment to 10 Liters of wine.

The formula result is that 540 grams of sugar are needed to raise the specific gravity of 10 Liters of wine from 995 to 1015.
Hope this helps clarify and does not add to the confusion.