Fermenters Forum

Add 3 ¾ teaspoons of Potassium Sorbate and 1/4 teaspoon of Potassium Bisulfite (or 5 crushed campden tablets. Remember that oxygen is your enemy from now until you drink your wine. The Potassium Bisulfite is added at this time as an anti-oxidant, to minimize browning, promote clarity and as a preservative. The Potassium Sorbate is added to prevent any additional fermentation in the bottle that would cause carbonation or to push the cork out of the bottle). Try to rack your wine with a minimum of splashing from this point on.

Sweetness. Your wine should taste pretty close to the final product by now. It is very common for the wine to have an ending specific gravity of .995 to 1.000. This is often too dry tasting for most people, since they would like a sweeter wine. The solution is to add sweetness back in at this time. The Potassium Sorbate you added in the previous step allows you to add more cane sugar, and not have it be fermented by the yeast. You can add boiled and cooled sugar water at this time. I cannot tell you how sweet you like your wine, so I also cannot tell you how much sugar to add. I would start by adding about ½ pound of sugar boiled in about 2 cups of water. You can add more later if you would like. The idea here is to add a little at a time, taste the wine, and then add more if you feel it is not enough. Experience has taught me that it is best to have a friend help you tasting for sweetness. Patience is valuable here.

You can determine your alcohol content now if you subtract your ending gravity from your original gravity and multiply the difference by .125 (example original gravity 1.085 – final gravity of 0.995 = 90. Multiply 90 X .125 = 11.25% alcohol by Volume.