finishing questions
 

I am planning out the finishing of my first batches. I have 1
gallon's of both strawberry and bannana. I have a 6 gallon batch that
is 3 gallons of both straw/bannana blended. The two recipies for
these wines are from Jack's site. I also have 4 gallons going of
raspberry/honey. This isnt a true melomel since I used 6# berries, 6#
honey then sweetened with sugar and my hydrometer. All batches where
fermented dry and are now aging. I plan to bulk age all of them for 6
months racking ever 60 days. The rasp. has already cleared after 2
weeks in primary and the others are hazy still after 2 months.

Anyway when bottling I want to stabalize and sweeten but need some
advice on this. I have 1 liter of must I siphoned off each batch that
I have frozen now. This was prior to yeast but after I used camden.
Should I use this too sweeten or will a water/sugar mix bring out
enough of the original fruit characteristic? If I use this frozen
mixture should I thaw it and let it settle for a period before using
it? If I do use this, I assume I will need to allow my wine to clear
again after sweetening? How often or how long could/should you rack
after stabilization before botteling? Can you stabilize - wait 10
days, sweeten - wait 60 days - bottle?

Also, how do you go about sweetening? siphon some wine out of a
caraboy, add sweetener back in then top off with wine you pulled out
and consume what is left? How do you mix the sweetening agent into
the wine, and how long do you wait after it is added to consider it
fully mixed so you can take a hydro reading? I also was hoping to
bottle 1/3 dry, then sweeten slihgtly and bottle another 1/3 then
sweeten some more and finish botteling so that I would better know my
tastes after aging another 6 months, but if you wait a period of time
before taking readings I dont know that is possible? I assume one
would not want to siphon the wine into a primary pail with a sphigot
and then from that sweeten and bottle?

Finally. Is their any charts or formulas that would say for example.
1 cup of liquid of S.G. 1.09 added to 1 gallon of S.G. .9 will raise
the batch to?

TIA for any of these answers! I have been wondering these questions
for a week or two.


Dan

finishing questions
 

I'll leave it to the experts to answer your questions (and take note of
those answers also)...
and ask one of my own: Why freeze the must?

Bart


> Anyway when bottling I want to stabalize and sweeten but need some
> advice on this. I have 1 liter of must I siphoned off each batch that
> I have frozen now. This was prior to yeast but after I used camden.
> Should I use this too sweeten or will a water/sugar mix bring out
> enough of the original fruit characteristic? If I use this frozen
> mixture should I thaw it and let it settle for a period before using
> it? If I do use this, I assume I will need to allow my wine to clear
> again after sweetening? How often or how long could/should you rack
> after stabilization before botteling? Can you stabilize - wait 10
> days, sweeten - wait 60 days - bottle?
>

finishing questions
 

finishing questions
 

well maybe must isn't the right word. The fruit was all in strainer
bags. What I did was to siphone off some of the liquid prior to
pitching the yeast. I read on a site somewhere that this could be
frozen and added back as a sweetener when finishing?


Dan

finishing questions
 

Dan,
I've been following the directions on Jack Keller's wine site for finishing
a wine, http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/index.asp . Since I like
semi-sweet wines, when I'm ready to finish a wine (after bulk aging), I
stabilize the wine, sweeten to taste, wait 10 days (or bulk age for 30
days), and then bottle. This gives the wine time to drop any yeasts
sediment. Remember to rack before bottling. So far, I'm happy with the
results.
Darlene

"Dan" > wrote in message
m...
> I am planning out the finishing of my first batches. I have 1
> gallon's of both strawberry and bannana. I have a 6 gallon batch that
> is 3 gallons of both straw/bannana blended. The two recipies for
> these wines are from Jack's site. I also have 4 gallons going of
> raspberry/honey. This isnt a true melomel since I used 6# berries, 6#
> honey then sweetened with sugar and my hydrometer. All batches where
> fermented dry and are now aging. I plan to bulk age all of them for 6
> months racking ever 60 days. The rasp. has already cleared after 2
> weeks in primary and the others are hazy still after 2 months.
>
> Anyway when bottling I want to stabalize and sweeten but need some
> advice on this. I have 1 liter of must I siphoned off each batch that
> I have frozen now. This was prior to yeast but after I used camden.
> Should I use this too sweeten or will a water/sugar mix bring out
> enough of the original fruit characteristic? If I use this frozen
> mixture should I thaw it and let it settle for a period before using
> it? If I do use this, I assume I will need to allow my wine to clear
> again after sweetening? How often or how long could/should you rack
> after stabilization before botteling? Can you stabilize - wait 10
> days, sweeten - wait 60 days - bottle?
>
> Also, how do you go about sweetening? siphon some wine out of a
> caraboy, add sweetener back in then top off with wine you pulled out
> and consume what is left? How do you mix the sweetening agent into
> the wine, and how long do you wait after it is added to consider it
> fully mixed so you can take a hydro reading? I also was hoping to
> bottle 1/3 dry, then sweeten slihgtly and bottle another 1/3 then
> sweeten some more and finish botteling so that I would better know my
> tastes after aging another 6 months, but if you wait a period of time
> before taking readings I dont know that is possible? I assume one
> would not want to siphon the wine into a primary pail with a sphigot
> and then from that sweeten and bottle?
>
> Finally. Is their any charts or formulas that would say for example.
> 1 cup of liquid of S.G. 1.09 added to 1 gallon of S.G. .9 will raise
> the batch to?
>
> TIA for any of these answers! I have been wondering these questions
> for a week or two.
>
>
> Dan

finishing questions
 

Thank you for the replies. I have spent quite some time reading
Jack's finishing pages. They are full of information but I was still
fuzzy about where and how long the finishing takes. In a carboy or in
a pail, how long to wait when sweeting to taste it etc. All the
little things I can spend the whole day worring about while I wait a
few more months until the time comes :)

finishing questions
 

You know Dan, I never thought about that. Now this is the way I've been
doing it - At about 6 months, I rack the wine to a new jug, siphoning off
about a cup or so into a clear glass measuring cup. To this I add my
crushed campden tablet. After stirring until it is mixed, I pour back into
the gallon jug. Then I pour another cup or so out of the gallon jug - add
my stabilizing agent, stir to make sure it is dissolved, and then pour back
into the jug. Then I pour some more out - add the sugar, stir until
dissolved, and pour back into my 1 gallon jug. I've been known to use my
big stir stick to stir the contents of the entire jug, to make sure
everything is mixed. Then I put the bung and airlock back on and let it sit
for a month before I rack again and then bottle. I do it all at once. It
seems to work. Maybe someone will offer a different approach.
Darlene

"Dan" > wrote in message
om...
> Thank you for the replies. I have spent quite some time reading
> Jack's finishing pages. They are full of information but I was still
> fuzzy about where and how long the finishing takes. In a carboy or in
> a pail, how long to wait when sweeting to taste it etc. All the
> little things I can spend the whole day worring about while I wait a
> few more months until the time comes :)

finishing questions