First brew for a few decades

[sargan]

It's a long time since I made any wine ... 20 yrs+
but thought I'd blown the dust off the demijohn's and have a go.

I followed a recipe - and since been told current practise has changed and I should not have added water ... but too late for that.
20Lb of stalked clean grapes
2 Lit grape juice
2 gall water

started off the must ... adding citric acid & pectolayze
SG readings at steps were

Initial.................... 1.040
added 33oz sugar....1.062
added 27oz sugar....1.082

day 6.................... 0.997
add can of grape concentrate..1.006
plus 16oz sugar ...... 1.022

day 10 .................. 0.996
added 16oz sugar ..... 1.022

day 13 ................... 0.994
added 16oz sugar......1.004

day 15 ................... 0.996 (strained off the pulp)
added 16oz sugar .....1.006


My simplistic Q is ... I want to finish this at s.g. 1.00 how many more times can I keep adding sugar and letting it ferment out, I know eventually yeast will be killed off by alcohol ... but am I close yet ?

Must volume is currently just under 4 gall.

[fatbloke]

Well if you know the tolerance (max % alcohol for the yeast) in theory, it could keep fermenting until it hits that percentage.

Though whether it would reach that level without stressing the yeast and causing off flavours, is a different question.

High alcohol batches often need to be aged for a long time.

One of the others can probably give you better ideas of what to do next, as I haven't done much with grapes/wines, as I mainly make meads.....

[lockwood1956]

you are at around 19% alcohol currently, so i think you are close to the yeast expiring
regards
bob

(thread moved from new winemakers area to here to save new winemakers area becoming cluttered, i like it easy to read)

[sargan]

Thanks ... appreciated

I know I have made a mistake by adding the 2 gall of water (my error following a Boots Home brew book) ... I added the grape concentrate, that should be watered to a gallon .. plus the 2 L of grape juice.

Would I be recommended to finish this off ... or I could take 2L of grape juice, ferment this with no water and then blend the 2 lots together ......... in attempt to reduce the dilution I have caused.