wine sweetness

[bill]

hi, i have a wine #1 and #2 near finishing , now im going to make these by the book just so i have made them as they should be for the experience..

i don't think im going to be a lover of dry wines but i still have a lot of tasting of wines to do so im not set on that thought.

ok, my two site wines.

i had a sneak taste of my #2 as its at 1030 , its very very nice albeit very slightly too sweet , i recon 1020 would be good.

my #1 is at 1010 and as is now tastes very good.

im going to let these ferm dry as per instructions and maybe backsweeten if i want them sweeter in due course..

i'm going to make another couple of batches and pick a yeast knowing its alcohol limit and feed sugar till the yeasties die leaving the sugar remaining hopefully judging it right so i end up with the correct sweetness..

whats this process called ?

bob mentioned it in the recipe prep thread recently..

billy

[goldseal]

Sugar feeding.

Personally, I wouldn't recommend doing this with Wine No.1 and 2. They are light table wines, and 11 or 12% alcohol is about right. If you sugar-feed, you'll take them to 14 or 15%, and they'll taste like rocket fuel.

If you want them a bit sweeter, I would recommend fermenting to dry (i.e. fermentation has ceased of its own accord), stabilising the wine with sorbate and sulphite, then sweeten to taste.

[bill]

ok cheers.. im thinking if i do decide to sweeten im not sure if adding grape juice will ruin the now pleasant and seemingly balanced flavour. #2 im talking about.

would a sugar syrup be better so as not to change the taste too much or " proper" wine sweetener available from the HB shops..

billy

[wurzel]

With #1 wine I dissolve 1 to 2oz of suger into it plus 1tsp of glycerin after fermenting to dry.

#2 I bring up to about 1.004 with just suger (about 5 to 6oz)