Carrot 'Whisky' - What the heck have I done?

[simon john]

Apologies for being a lurker, I joined this forum in 2010 when I planned to be doing loads of Winemaking - plans huh?

Apologies again for the length of this post - I am VERY flummoxed!

Carrot 'Whisky' Saga

I have tried to make some Carrot Whisky, I like Whisky and Ginger mixed 2/1 (made from Riddles) so I thought I could save a heap of money by making a potent wine and adjusting the mixture.

To make 15 litres - I Boiled up 10kg carrots and added 4kg sugar, and 1.5kg wheat, I left the mixture for about a week then strained out the wheat - the hydrometer said 1112, I then added K1-V116 yeast and 12 teaspoons of Tronozymol

After about a week of nice bubbling the SG came down to 1008 so I added 500g of sugar. 10 days later the SG was back down to 1008 again , so I added another 500g of sugar and some more tronozymol. At first it looked like milk shake, but cleared nicely after about 6 weeks. Fermentation had almost stopped so put it into a cold room - and forgot it was there!

Today I have measured the SG and it is 900! It might be even lower as I'm not that good at reading these figures, please see pictures. It has a texture like a liqueur and although you wouldn't want to drink it on its own it does not taste too nasty.

Trying to calculate the alcohol content I subtracted 900 finishing SG from the 1112 starting SG and divided by 7.6 and that comes to 27.89% - that surely is not possible?? Then I remembered that I had added 1kg of sugar during the fermentation!!!!

I read somewhere that to get an increase of 1% you needed to add 20g of sugar pre litre, so as I have added 1000g to 15 litres that would equate to an increase of 3.33% ( 1000g / 20g / 15 litres ), so my final alcohol figure is 31.22%!!!

I MUST have got this wrong somewhere! The Lalvin K1-V116 yeast is supposed to go up to 20%, which is what I was aiming for, but 31%? Please someone tell me where I am being stupid!

 

[hedgerow pete]

never used that particular yeast but i can do wines over 25% with some hard work, never knew we could get a wine yeast past 30 tho

 

[Abstract]

im not pro but but by my guesswork the suger alone wound get up to 20% i have no idea how much suger is in the other ingrediants ,but if it tastes ok get it supped :thumb: sry i carnt help with the calculations

 

[ingypingy2]

From the look of the hydrometer in the photo, I'd have plumped a guess that the reading was 0.990, not 900???

 

[Muddydisco]

+1 for 990 on that hydrometer meaning your at 16%

 

[simon john]

Doh! Thanks chaps! I told you I was a dummy when it came to Hydrometer reading! 16% is spot on, so with the extra sugar I added during the fermentation that would make about 20% - which is what I had hoped for. I've put it away to 'improve', I'll let you know if it's drinkable later. Thanks again!