Is my wine ready??? Please help!!

acecaz123

Hi,

I have a 21l  of white wine 'cooking'! The instructions say to move it to the second tank on day 5. My hydrometer is reading ' 1.115 (Day 4) which would mean its med/sweet already and its moved down a whole line since yesterday am. I am concerned that if I leave it until tomorrow afternoon it will be too dry, so do I go by the 5 day rule or follow the hydrometer?
If I transfer today, and add the finishing bits, can I leave it in that tank until I am ready to bottle (Sat am) or will it need bottleing as soon as I have finished it?

Many thanks.

 

HBO_Staff

It's best to let the wine finish fermenting, timescales vary with temperature etc so are a guide only. If when you come to bottle it you find it needs to be sweeter, then sweetener, grape juice or sugar can be added to taste to make it to your preference

Gerry

To sweeten your dry wine. Put one litre of water into a pan. Bring it to the boil . Then add one kilogram of white sugar, stirring all the time until all the sugar is dissolved When the mixture is cold add a little to the wine until you get the required taste. 

acecaz123

Thanks it actually came out perfectly without adding any thing. Next question though, I have a second batch on, today is day 6. I left it another day as the hydro had dropped from 1005 to 1000 the night before. This morning, its dropped to 99.5. I have a heat mat maintaining temp 24 which I think is helping. Do I leave it for another 24 hours to see if it drops any more? Thanks. :-)

HBO_Staff

It is always best to just giveit an extra day and check it's completely finished and the hydro reading remains constant, before moving on to the next stage. Great news on the first batch turning out so well!

acecaz123

Yes, only problem is it got drunk far too quickly!!

Thanks for advice.