Posted: 6/18/2012 3:18:58 PM EDT
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Ok, I have ramped up my wine making and want to start taking some notes on what I'm making instead of just throwing juice and yeast into a carboy and letting things go.
I bought a hydrometer and started a 5 gallon batch of muscato. The initial SG was 1.08, I'm now at 0.994 after secondary. My hydrometer has 3 scales on it and I think I'm reading it properly. The potential alcohol scale at 1.08 is 10-11%. At 0.994 it reads 0%. Am I right in "guessing" that it should be around 10% or so? My understanding is that you subtract the 2nd reading from the first. If it makes any diffference, the yeast was Lalvin EC-1118. I've been dabbling at making wine for about a year. I've made 5 gallons of decent mead, concord wine and riesling but I would like to tune some things to make my results more predictable. I understand that taking initial and periodic SG's should help. any thoughts? |
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Quoted:
Ok, I have ramped up my wine making and want to start taking some notes on what I'm making instead of just throwing juice and yeast into a carboy and letting things go. I bought a hydrometer and started a 5 gallon batch of muscato. The initial SG was 1.08, I'm now at 0.994 after secondary. My hydrometer has 3 scales on it and I think I'm reading it properly. The potential alcohol scale at 1.08 is 10-11%. At 0.994 it reads 0%. Am I right in "guessing" that it should be around 10% or so? My understanding is that you subtract the 2nd reading from the first. If it makes any difference, the yeast was Lalvin EC-1118. I've been dabbling at making wine for about a year. I've made 5 gallons of decent mead, concord wine and riesling but I would like to tune some things to make my results more predictable. I understand that taking initial and periodic SG's should help. any thoughts? Subtracting the initial from the final gravity will give you an approximate ABV, based on the ABV scale (with software -ABW). Your about 10.6% ABV & 8.38 ABW. Taking occasional hydrometer readings when you expect fermentation is complete is very good, especially in winter. The alcohol is affecting you hydrometer a little. That is why it is registering below 1.000. 1.000 or below You have a very dry wine there. It means all the sugars are fermented. EC-1118 is a yeast that will dry a wine out. Also, you have to take in the calibration on your hydrometer. Most are at 60oF. So, you have to adjust for your wine temp. Usually, 1-2 degrees. Now, to check out your hydrometer, use distilled water & take temp of distilled water which will read 1.000. That should tell you if you have any errors. |
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Thanks for the reply. I believe I have a rough idea now how these things work and will test my hydrometer to see where it's at. I did dry these wines out as much as possible. I plan to back sweeten them with a little conditioner before bottling.
If I dried everything out to 1.000, could I back sweeten with sugar, or would I still risk the yeast reactivating? |
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Quoted:
Thanks for the reply. I believe I have a rough idea now how these things work and will test my hydrometer to see where it's at. I did dry these wines out as much as possible. I plan to back sweeten them with a little conditioner before bottling. If I dried everything out to 1.000, could I back sweeten with sugar, or would I still risk the yeast reactivating? It shouldn't if you use a commercial back sweetener. I'm not going to make a 100% guarantee. Maybe 99%. 
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