Many of the wine recipes I see start with juice and ask you to add
water to top off. Why use water? Why not use juice? I would think
that would add more body to the wine. IT also adds more sugar, but
that can be adjusted for, can't it?

I would not do that, I use wine to top off, not juice or water. I use
any red for a red, white for a white. Adding juice may make the end
product unstable or may not. If you want a non dry wine juice is a
good option. It depends on what style you are making and what steps are
taken to deal with the sugar in the juice.

Joe

>Why use water? Why not use juice?

Well for concentrate kits, you just add the water back to replace what
was taken out.

For other wines it is all a matter of balance. You only want so much
fruit for a wine of x% alcohol and y% residual sugar. To mush fruit
and you have alcoholic juice. To much sugar and you have alcoholic
kool aide. To much alcohol and you have rocket fuel.

You do not want to add juice to top off unless you want to make a sweet
wine. The juice has sugar, of course, and it does not take much sugar to
turn a dry wine sweet. If you want to sweeten the wine you may use juice.
But then you must use sorbate to prevent it from refermenting and you must
realize that you may cause it to become cloudy again. You might create a
new fining problem even after it has cleared.

If you are using kits, they are designed to be topped off with water so they
will be balanced. If you are making your own wines from juice or fruit, you
can design it to be topped off with water or to be topped off with wine. I
rarely top off these wines. I just rack into smaller containers.

Ray

"mdginzo" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> Many of the wine recipes I see start with juice and ask you to add
> water to top off. Why use water? Why not use juice? I would think
> that would add more body to the wine. IT also adds more sugar, but
> that can be adjusted for, can't it?
>

"Ray Calvert" > wrote in message
. net...
<snip><snip>
>
> If you are using kits, they are designed to be topped off with water so
> they will be balanced. If you are making your own wines from juice or
> fruit, you can design it to be topped off with water or to be topped off
> with wine. I rarely top off these wines. I just rack into smaller
> containers.
>
> Ray



Do not top up kit wines with water. I always use a similar type of wine from
my "cellar". I never use water to top up

--
Trevor A Panther
In South Yorkshire,
England, United Kingdom.
Remove PSANTISPAM to reply

The issue was not topping up after racking, but bringing the volume of
the must from 3 (the concentrate) to 6.