Finished wine too sweet

[Thurston Garden]

I bottled last years elderberry wine and was disappointed to find it quite sweet. Now I had one of those heat belt thingys round both demi johns whilst it was fermenting so it fermented very steadily. It had definitely stopped bubbling when I racked it off.

Can I pop it back in the demi johns with a little yeast and see if it will properly ferment out? It's a pity to pour 12 bottles down the drain!

TG

[MKG]

Maybe - but it's not guaranteed to work. If your wine has stuck at around the 7 to 8% ABV mark (i.e. half-strength) you may be able to restart it using Champagne yeast. But you'd need to make up a starter, and this will not work at all if you added any wine stabiliser at any stage. Get yourself a clean bottle, fill half full with tepid water and then another quarter full with your wine, add a teaspoon of sugar and a squeeze of lemon juice - quarter of a lemon is plenty - (and, ideally, a bit of yeast nutrient and about a quarter of a crushed Vit B1 tablet). Give it a damn good shake, add the Champagne yeast, plug the top with cotton wool and leave in a warm place for at least 24 hours. Empty all your wine into the bucket/demijohns, pour in the yeast starter, cover or add airlocks, and go away on holiday. It might do the trick - or it might not restart at all.

How much sugar did you add per gallon? If it was 2.5 lbs. then you should have had no problem making a 12.5% ABV wine. If it was over that, the possibility of residual sweetness increases with the amount of extra sugar. 3 lbs per gallon theoretically gives you 15% ABV, but you're then in the realms of the yeast starting to go on strike. You can get more alcohol but it takes you being a mollycoddling nursemaid to the yeast. For most intents and purposes, anything over 3 lbs of sugar per gallon will virtually guarantee residual sweetness.

Assuming that the problem is not a stuck fermentation - in which case the Champagne yeast should do the trick - and you have a reasonable amount of alcohol in there (and, as it's elderberry, I should imagine it has reasonable body) you could try simply watering it down. Experiment with a bottle (here's the fun bit). Try a glass of three quarters wine and a quarter water and see what you think. I'm sure you can work out the rest of that method.

Or, if you have any other homebrew around which turned out to be, shall we say, so dry as to be almost unpalatable, you could try blending the two together. You'll need to give that a bit of time after the blending for the flavours to redevelop, but it can lead to superb results from naff components.

Failing all else, you have some very cheap wine for cooking, so don't throw it away.

Stick the recipe up on here - maybe there'll be something glaring that you can rectify right away.

Mike

[Thurston Garden]

Thanks Mike. I don't have the recipe to hand (am at work practicing my internet skills). I know I followed the JJ Berry recipe in his red book. I would not have put in more sugar.

I think the first test would be to water it down and see if it has the desired effect on my legs and steering. Otherwise I will get together the yeast and stuff and have another bash at fermenting with the starter. 12 bottles of cooking wine is going to last a sad singleton living in a caravan a VERY long time lol.

[Annpan]

You could always find someone who likes sweet wine and pour it in their general direction

[MKG]

Well, I looked up the CJ Berry recipe in his First Steps in Winemaking. I suspected I might find this - he uses 3.5 lbs of sugar per gallon. On the other hand, he only uses 3 lbs of elderberries. I would have expected 4 lbs of elderberries minimum and 3 lbs of sugar maximum.

If that's the one you used, I would now say that you have a wine of about 15% ABV - very respectable! - and some 8 ounces of sugar per gallon floating around in solution. That recipe was always going to end up sweet (if it hadn't, you'd have wine at 17.5% ABV which is normally not achievable without sugar feeding techniques). A restart using high-tolerance yeast will NOT work.

So - dilution is definitely your best bet. However, the recipe (again, if that's the one you used) is a bit light on fruit and therefore body, so you won't have too much leeway. Suck it and see.

There's always the option of steeping a muslin-wrapped bundle of herbs and spices in the wine. It'll be just as sweet but the other flavours might mask that. I wouldn't normally suggest that as it can end up in complete disaster, but if nothing else is working ...

Mike

[Thurston Garden]

Suck it and see.Mike

Sounds like a plan. 15% you say? Steering gear failure tonight then

Thanks Mike.

[MKG]

We expect a full report tomorrow - if you can see the keyboard

Mike

[Green Aura]

Or you could save it for mulled wine at Christmas - 1 bottle for each of the 12 days

[Thurston Garden]

Aaaarg! Never again!

[MKG]

It was OK, then?

Mike

[Thurston Garden]

Hehe Mike - I never got it tried. I might not get it tried tonight either as I have some trees to cut down tomorrow so better not do it with a hangover!

I will let you know the outcome though.