Nov 30 2008
Hydrometers
Hydrometers - The One “Specific” Winemaking Equipment Item
There is one important thing you must remember before you start your first batch of wine.
Before you put your yeast in, you have to KNOW what the potential alcohol, or the specific gravity of the juice is.
If the potential alcohol is too low, or the specific gravity is too low, you will end up with grape juice with very little, if any alcohol.
To measure this, you will need a hydrometer.
With a hydrometer, you can measure the weight of the water relative to water. Basically - you can tell if your wine juice is equal to the weight of water or lighter or heavier.
You can order one of these from a variety of sources, either online or at a wine making shop.
The use of the hydrometer is briefly explained in the instructions that come with it.
But trust me - you need DETAILS.
Your Hydrometer should read about 1.1 before you start fermenting.
What this is telling you is that because you have sugar dissolved in your juice, it weighs more than water would. Sugar increases the specific gravity.
Although the reading differs for different types of wines, this will at least get you started off in the right direction.
Once the fermentation is complete, your S.G. (specific gravity) should be LESS THAN 1.00 because alcohol weighs LESS THAN water.
Anyway, I hope your experiments are going good. I can still remember when I was waiting for my first batch to be ready… pretty exciting.
Cheers!
Mike
Good morning. I believe I ordered your video series on wine making several weeks ago and haven’t recieved anything yet. If you could check sand see if my order made it to you I’d appreciate it. Thanks.
My info is
Wayne Kettelhut
3864 Hwy 33 N
Cloquet, MN. 55720
218-940-1331
eodkettelhut@gmail.com
Hi Wayne - wanted you to see this post - I will take down your info as soon as you reply to my email. I have been emailing you with the access info but haven’t heard from you.
Please check for my email.
Mike
hello mike….. thanks for allowing me 2 download your book..but i was hoping that you would have some answer to any problems (trouble shooting so to speak of) eg. i buy my wine kit(juice) from a supplier and my red is not bubbling like my white is!why is that?? i did everything that the info said to do ..this is my 5th time making wine ,all the others have worked out fine…they turn out beautifully…..they also say if you lose some wine while racking just top it off with the same type of wine not water,,and i find that w/reds you have to rack more than 3times to get the resin out i rack at least 5x for the reds there\’s so much film on the bottom is this wrong????one more thing, when bottling i find that i do get some bubbles at the neck of the bottles i try to over fill to remove them or i use a chop stick to break it up,,,should i wait for them to settle down or just cork it as is …is this wrong for the wine. thanks so much for reading this hope to hear from u soon …cheers deborah….
if your wine isn’t bubbling - the first thing I would try is to add another packet of yeast. Wait 24 to 36 hours. If that doesn’t do it - you may have something that is inhibiting the yeast.
Use a yeast starter. Put the yeast in warm sugar water and let it get started bubbling. Then pour it into the wine and wait and see what happens.
Also - as far as the LEES (dead yeast), it seems like red wines have more because they are darker. You can useually just rack them twice - 5 times isn’t necessay.
Rack once after 10 days, and then another time after a month. That usually does it. IF it’s still cloudy after a month, wait another 2 months and rack it once more.
Mike
can u keep the fermentation going by adding small amounts of syrup to increase the alcohol content in the wine if so how long can u keep it going for? or is it not recommended to ferment too long incase u sacrifice taste & bouquet of the finished masterpiece.
Andrew…
The fermentation will only go on to a point and that point is when the alcohol percentage is too high for the yeast to live anymore. Once you hit about 15% to 16% - the yeast cannot survive and your must will stop fermenting no matter how much more sugar or syrup you add.