Alcohol percent

[kristofer]

Took the first SG and then waited for it to go down to .990 before placing into the secondary fermenter. In doing this I found that some of the wines are going to be a little light in the alcohol percent. Now that it is in the secondary and down to .990, how do I get more alcohol percent? If so, is there a way to measure alcohol now that yeast has been added from the first time? Please help,,, thanks a million for all info.

 

[hvjackson]

What's "a little light"? What was your first SG reading?

 

[kristofer]

They varied from 1.062, 1.071, 1.1, 1.054. They are all at .990 except strawberry is at .988. I did the calculation from grapestompers.com that you put in your reading and at what temp. It automatically calculates it for you. A few of my wines show to be around 8.75 and 9.75. That was for about three of them. The rest are around 12 to 15 percent. I did eight different wines, but have not tested three of them yet because they were no where near .990 yet.

 

[hvjackson]

Well most wines finish around 0.990 or 0.995, so it sounds like they're pretty much done. It's primarily the first SG reading that will tell you how much alcohol the wine is going to have, so that should've been your first indication that you were going to be low.

I know it's possible to add sugar to boost the alcohol content, but I don't know if you're too late since the wine has already been at its final gravity for some time and you've already transferred to secondary. But I don't really see a problem with your ABV %. 10% is a totally acceptable alcohol content for wine, and you're only a little on the low side.

 

[Yooper]

You can definitely add some sugar (dissolved in some boiling water and then the syrup cooled) to the fermenter now if you want. Normally you rack to secondary when the wine is 1.010-1.020 if possible, but doing it at .990 is probably fine. Make sure that if you aren't adding new fermentables that the wine is appropriately topped up and airlocked.

I don't think it's possible at all that one wine is .988, unless you distilled it and have a distillers hydrometer, so check the hydrometer in some 60 degree water to see if it's at 1.000.

 

[kristofer]

I'm using a triple scale and I used good plane filtered drinking water. Wen I took the second SG of the strawberry it was above the .990 mark equivalent to one mark on the scale.

 

[kristofer]

I spoke with the wine guy at austin home brew in austin tx earlier today and he said that it would be fine to add half the amount of sugar per one gallon x num of gallons and a half of packet of yeast . He said then to take first SG and second SG to get the alcohol from the first go round. Then to take the SG after adding the sugar and again once I go into the next fermenter. Take the first alcohol reading and add it to the second alcohol reading to give you an approximate. So it could look something like this 1.064 to .990 is 10.05%. Now the other SG after more sugar added mat be 1.000 to .990 is 1.36%. For a today approximate of 11.41%. How does sound to anyone else???