My wine is 9%. How do I increase the alcohol content to12%?

[mancer62]

It was made on Friday 23l batch Wilkos Merlot any ideas ? cheers

 

[honeymonster]

More time. 4 days is a little quick for it to be finished fermenting!

What are the original and final gravity readings that give you the 9%?

 

[mancer62]

Please correct me if I am way off mark as I haven't made wine for many years.
My OG was 1068 I then used the ABV calculator with a projected FG of 1000 this would give me 12%.

 

[honeymonster]

With an OG of 1068 and an FG of 1000 that comes out bang on 9%.

To get up to 12% you'd need a higher OG, which means more fermentables in from the start.

Did you add any additional brewing sugar or just the contents of the can? I think the Wilkos kits need sugar added to hit the target ABV.

 

[mancer62]

I added 3.5kg tate and lyle white granulated sugar to 23 l which according to kit give me 12% ABV....I may not have mixed the wine thoroughly enough or maybe added a bit too much water. I was thinking about adding a half pint of cooled boiled water and 500g of sugar(syrup) tomorrow what do u think?

 

[honeymonster]

That sounds ok.

It'll be a whole lot easier to add more sugar than it would be to take the extra water out! :)

 

[mancer62]

So adding 500g of white sugar in half or quarter a cup of cooled boiled water might bring the ABV up from 9% to what in your opinion?

 

[honeymonster]

By my calculation it'll bring it up to about 10.3/10.4%.

Having reread your posts you say you might not have mixed the wine thoroughly. If you followed the kit instructions and added the right amount of sugar you might still get to the desired 12%.

If the sugar wasn't dissolved properly it would give you a false reading, on the low side. However, the sugar would still be in there and the yeast would still find and convert it to alcohol.

Did you measure the amount of water you put in? What are you fermenting in? Does it have gradations to say roughly how much is in there?

 

[mancer62]

IT's a plastic 5 gallon wine fermenter. I used a 1l plastic measuring jug and added 23 of those (I think lol) it goes way above the 5 gallon/23 litre mark but I don't think that is very accurate.