Weak wine

[otuatail]

Hi I have had problems with weak wine and beer. These are the ones that say no sugar required and claim reasonable alcohol values. I have just put together a wine. California Connoisseur. Cabernet Sauvignon. After making it up and checking the SG (corrected for temperature), I got 1044. If it goes down to 0.995 as suggested then the ABV according to this website calculator is 6.5%. I think sugar is required although I am informed that it affects the flavour. In the UK, I cannot find a bottle of wine with an ABV of this. They are all in the 11% -15% values. I added 1kg of sugar that increased the reading to 1088. This transfers to 11.3%.

1) Will it have a significant effect on the flavour?
2) Will the yeast give up after a while as it can’t handle the alcohol?

Leaving the added sugar out would be weak. Not that I am an alcoholic, but would like it to have some strength.

TIA

Desmond.

 

[Moley]

I don't make kit wines and have only ever done a couple of Beaverdale single gallons, but I was under the impression that Beaverdale and CalCon were in the same sort of league, you get a bag of grape juice plus glucose/fructose syrup and shouldn't need to add anything other than water.

Just checked my notes and I got OGs of 1.082 from the Beaverdale Rioja and CabSauv.

Are you sure you've mixed that up right and not used litres instead of pints?

 

[otuatail]

Just checked my notes and I got OGs of 1.082 from the Beaverdale Rioja and CabSauv.

Yes I did that. First few lines of instructions say gravity should be between 1080 and 1095.
Unless my hydrometer is faulty. It says 1044. {Famouse comercial quote "It does what it says on the tin"}
My hdrometer differes greatly.

There is a website on the instructions, www.vinewine.com. Which gives me [email protected].
I don't expect any posite response.

 

[otuatail]

Hi I sent an email to the company about the problem of the low sg of 1044. They emailed me and asked for the batch code to send to their QC department. The made a few assumption one of which was too much water was added.

Are there any calculators to work things like this out. For example if I made the wine up to 5 gallons at it gave a reading of 1080 (which they claim to get) and I added a further gallon of water. What would the SG drop down to. 1044 sounds a bit low for a 20% increase in water.

The other point they raised was "the wine concentrate and water were not mixed thoroughly - the SG reading you took was from a low sugar 'pocket'
".

TIA
Desmond.

 

[Banksy]

I would check your hydrometer, first in water at the correct temperature, and then in a measured dilution of sugar. Why don't you make a batch of WOW following Moley's recipe. By doing this you can be fairly confident that you have a liquid at a calculatable SG.

COI: I just completed Callifornia Connoisseur's Merlot, and my SG was spot on.

Good luck with that.

 

[Moley]

If it's meant to give 1.080 at 5 gallons it would still give 80 x 5/6 = 1.067 at 6 gallons.

I think their other point is more likely, you hadn't stirred it very well and your trial sample was too thin.