Cranberry and raspberry wine

[Cowlers]

My first time at making wine without a kit, so i have Started a recipe as follows -

1 ltr WGJ (sainsburys)
1ltr Cranberry and raspberry juice (sainsburys)
1 Kilo sugar
Juice of 1 lemon
Mug black tea (2 bag strong)
1 tsp pectin
5g yeast
1 tsp nutrient
1 tsp glycerine

OG =1.122

Still fermenting after 9 days

Just took a gravity reading which came out at 1.006

I work out a ABV of 15.5%??? And still fermenting
Did I over do the sugar?

 

[oldbloke]

I don't see enough sugar there to get to 15%, I don't suppose you still have the juice cartons or noted what sugar they had?

 

[Cowlers]

I don't have the cartons, but will find out tomorrow

 

[goodolpete]

96g if you bought the full sugar one.
Did you stir vigorously?

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I made a lot of supermarket juice wine and have found cranberry or pomegranate based wines do take longer to ferment than orange or apple based wines.

 

[Cowlers]

I gave it a good ol' shake up and made sure the sugar was dissolved in water before putting it in the DJ.

Just wondering though, how to take an accurate OG reading as I don't add water to 4.5 Ltrs until day 3 of ferment, so the reading I take is about 2L juice with 1.5 Litres water + extras. Will the reading be accurate enough?

 

[Cowlers]

By the way the recipe uses RGJ not WGJ....

 

[oldbloke]

Not really, no. This is where the hydrometer gets tricky, and why I tend to just run with the rule of thumb that 20g/l=1%

Take a reading in a known volume, convert that to an amount of sugar (from various tables on the net)
Either calc your ABV from that sugar or do the math for the dilution and convert back to a gravity reading
Eg some reading equates to X g/l sugar, *CurrentVolume/FinalVolume, convert back

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Just wondering though, how to take an accurate OG reading as I don't add water to 4.5 Ltrs until day 3 of ferment, so the reading I take is about 2L juice with 1.5 Litres water + extras. Will the reading be accurate enough?

If you aim for total sugar content of 1100g you will end up with approximately 13% abv.
I have checked my cartons of juice and ones similar to the ones you used would have given around 1250g total, so yours is going to be above 13% :

I rarely use my hydrometer for taking the OG but do use it occasionally to make sure my wine has finished.

 

[Cowlers]

Cheers chippy

Based on old blokes 20g/L =1% , it should be about 13.88% :
Thanks old bloke for the rough formula