Follow Up Warning To Increasing The Alcohol Level In Your Wine

I received a very insightful reponse to my most recent post on increasing the alcohol level in your wine, which I thought I should share with you all as there is a “darker side” to it that you should be aware of!

Mark writes:

“I have a couple comments on your blog post.  First of all, you should add a caution statement about adding sugar into fermenting wine.  It needs to be added very slowly.  The first time I did this, I dumped about 4 lbs of sugar into my 6 gallon primary while it was still actively fermenting.  WOW what a mess.  It foamed up like crazy and overflowed the primary bucket and went all over the floor.  Lesson learned. 
 
The next point is that I have found that adding extra sugar at the beginning has much the same affect if all you want is about 15% alcohol.  If you start with a brix of about 30-32 I usually end up with at least 15% alcohol without having to add sugar a second time.
 
Lastly, there may be a consideration on the type of yeast you use.  Some yeasts will burn themselves out and drown in the alcohol when it gets up around 13-14%.  I have not experimented much with this but I do know that Cote des Blancs has a good tolorance for higher alcohol content.
 
As far as the taste is concerned, you may find that the final RS needs to be higher in the bottled wine if the alcohol content is higher to achieve the same taste as you’d have with a lower alcohol content.  That has been my experience anyway.
 
I hope this information helps.

- Mark”

Thanks Mark – certainly worth mentioning to everyone!

- Scott “The Wine Making Guy”

How to Make Homemade Wine from Store Bought Grape Juice

I found this video on YouTube and it had me wondering how many people make wine from store bought grape juice.

Have a look at the video and let me know if this is something you’d try yourself. I’m certainly not knocking the video or this wine – just not something that I had thought of …

Would love to hear what you think so be sure to leave a comment!

- Scott “The Wine Making Guy”

The Absolute Easiest Way To Remove The Cap From A Wine Kit Bag

Ever had difficulty opening one of those wine kit bags?

This video will show you a tool that will make this finger nail breaking task so much easier!