More wine blending

WCG

Following on from the Cabernet Sauvignon-Pinot Noir blend I made a couple of months ago, I've now started the promised Merlot-Cabernet Sauvignon blend.
Again it's 50-50% with a slack handful of oak chips thrown in.
The Merlot kit came with a packet of 'chips' but it would be more accurate to describe it as dust, so I also added some of the normal chips HBO sell.

Messed up a bit, though...both kits make about 4.5L each, so combined it would be about 9L.
Suffering from brain-fade, I added both bags of wine ( about 3L in total ) then proceeded to add 9L of water !!
Unsurprisingly, with a total mix of about 12L the SG was well down on what it should be ( 1.062 as opposed to about 1.085-1.09 )
No worries, thinks I, I'll add some brewing sugar to raise the SG.....only to find I haven't got any.

I've ordered some more, but as the batch has already been started I'll have to add it later then do a rough calculation on what difference it'll make to the SG ( from memory, about 500g sugar should raise it from 1.06 to 1.09 )

HBO_Staff

Great, let us know on your progress. easy mistake to make with the quantity and you are definitely not the first, as you say you could add some sugar to bump it up or perhaps some grape juice just to give it a bit more body and flavour

WCG

I considered adding grape juice, but as it's a bit of an experiment I didn't want to skew the result.

It's a shame you can't add DME or LME as I've got plenty of that

WCG

Delivery of brewing sugar and other stuff just arrived.
Tested the SG & it's already down to 0.996 ( about 8.7% ABV )
I didn't bother weighing it, I just added enough sugar to take it back up to around 1.02 ( 1.022 to be precise )
In theory, that difference ( .026 ) added to the original SG should make it up to around 1.088
Not 100% accurate, but it shouldn't be that far out.
If it gets down to around .996 again, that should make it just over 12% ABV.

WCG

Just checked the SG, 13 days after starting it & 10 days after adding the sugar.
It's now down to .991 which is a lot better than I expected.
If my calculations were correct and the SG was effectively 1.088, that would mean an ABV of around 12.5-12.75

Not added any finings etc. to clear it yet, so it' still cloudy, but it tastes OK.

When I do 'bottle' it, I'll be sticking the bulk of it into 2x 5L 'bag-in-a-box'.
I'm contemplating chucking some oak chips in with one of the bags, to see what effect it has.....anyone tried this?

HBO_Staff

The gravity reading sounds nice and low so it will be about finished fermenting. Adding oak chips is quite common to infuse flavour, it is often experimentation to get the flavour you want and you can vary how long you leave the chips in when brewing the wine, just bear in mind - if you add the oak chips to the finished wine and leave in the bag in box, they will keep infusing flavour and it could be hard to remove the chips after they have been infusing for awhile - perhaps not a problem in a smaller 5 litre container though.