Tinsy snafu

[ukric]

Ok, before anyone slates me, it was my first, I'm not ashamed, everyone makes mistakes

Before the days of reading, before i started using a hydrometer, I made a wine. Made just from white grape.

There were 3 mistakes in making this wine.
1.) Sugar was added directly to the must, no syrup made.
2.) I followed an american instruction and did not adjust for US to UK pounds.
3.) I did not measure the OG.

The result is this, I have an SG of 1070, no further fermentation, and according to a vinometer (which I don't bloody trust) I have 18% by vol.

Should I bin it? Or can it be salvaged in some way?

TIA

Ric

[lockwood1956]

Should I bin it? Or can it be salvaged in some way?

Noooooooooo

dont bin it, you can salvage it by blending with another wine

ferment a wine No 1 to dry (start SG around 1.060) and blend the two....will likely work out well

[ukric]

1 gal to 1gal or something else?

[lockwood1956]

Yup

1 gal to 1 gal should be good

should give you 2 gallons at raround 13 to 14%

[lockwood1956]

And an SG of (approx) 1.030 (you may need to add some acid to cut the sweetness)

[ukric]

I prefer dry/medium, would 2 gal and a lower SG work out?

[P cuthbert]

Actually Ric, pounds are the same in both the UK and the US. Gallons are different, with the US being 4/5th the size of the UK.

If you can give us the recipe that you followed, there is a fair chance that we can come to a more definitive answer. If you can get the sugar reading off the bottle of juice you used, it will give us a pretty good estimate of the opening brix. Brix - %sugar in the solution so you might even get that directly from the label.

Then, if you let us know how much water and how much sugar was added, we can give you a better idea of where you currently stand.

As for blending, you may wish to make a double batch of Wine 1 to blend off to give you a dry/medium dry wine.

It may also be possible to use the old wine as part of the must for the new wine if we can determine how much sugar is actually there.