If a wine ferments dry to .992 and I wanted to sweeten it up a bit but
for whatever reason did not sorbate to prevent refermentation what is
likely to happen?

If fermentation starts again is the wine ruined,...degraded? Or could
this process be done over a long period of time until eventually the
yeast was entirely used up and residual sugar would be present to
finish off dry?

Does fermentation starting back up cause any problems other than a
longer process?

John F

If you sweeten the wine without stabilizing it, and then bottle it; you
could end up with bottle bombs if fermentation starts again. This happened
with one of my batches - I had Champaign-like wine. I was lucky, I had a
small mess (only 2 bottles popped at the bottom of my wine rack), and
realized rather quickly what had happened to prevent a bigger mess. I've
heard of many horror stories on this site from wine starting to ferment
again in the bottles. If you don't use the wine stabilizer (sorbate), and
there is yeast left in the wine it will start to ferment again if you add
sweetener. I wouldn't classify the wine as ruined, it will just start
fermenting again and you would have a slightly higher alcohol content, and
the wine will take longer to ferment to dry. I stabilize all my wine now
especially when I want to sweeten the wine a bit. It doesn't take cleaning
up popped wine bottles (with wine all over the place)once before deciding to
never want to do that again. Others may like living on the wild side...but
not me.
Darlene

> wrote in message
oups.com...
> If a wine ferments dry to .992 and I wanted to sweeten it up a bit but
> for whatever reason did not sorbate to prevent refermentation what is
> likely to happen?
>
> If fermentation starts again is the wine ruined,...degraded? Or could
> this process be done over a long period of time until eventually the
> yeast was entirely used up and residual sugar would be present to
> finish off dry?
>
> Does fermentation starting back up cause any problems other than a
> longer process?
>
> John F
>

It depends on how you store it. If you can keep it in a refrigerator
it may not explode, but I can't gaurantee that.

Sweet wines have 3 options.

Sorbate, which is what most homewinemakers do.

Sterile filtering; most commercial winemakers do this but it's almost
imopossible to gaurantee sterility for the home winemaker.

Pasteurization.

As Dar mentioned you if you have enough sugar and the yeast can consume
it the bottles will be exposed to an internal pressure that may cause
them to explode. When you ferment you not only create alcohol, you
create CO2 gas. If that is sealed in a bottle, well... you may get a
nice fizz if it's not much pressure, or you may get explosions if it's
too much pressure.

Joe



> > If a wine ferments dry to .992 and I wanted to sweeten it up a bit but
> > for whatever reason did not sorbate to prevent refermentation what is
> > likely to happen?
> >
> > If fermentation starts again is the wine ruined,...degraded? Or could
> > this process be done over a long period of time until eventually the
> > yeast was entirely used up and residual sugar would be present to
> > finish off dry?
> >
> > Does fermentation starting back up cause any problems other than a
> > longer process?
> >
> > John F
> >

Yes, you could keep adding sugar until fermentation comes to a halt. But then the alcohol level would be so high approx 16 - 17% that the nature of the wine would have changed.
If the acid levels are high and the alcohol levels are around 13%, you might get away with the addition of sodium metabisulphate, but only to a level that you just detect it. Safer to add sorbate, the amounts required are miniscule.
I've had situations where a wine has been stable in bulk for a long time, but as soon as I bottle it, the process somehow encourages re fermentation.
In my strawberry wine, I sterile filter and add small amounts of sorbate.

"If you sweeten the wine without stabilizing it, and then bottle it;
you could end up with bottle bombs if fermentation starts again."

What if you sweeten and age for another 6-8 weeks could fermentation
stay "stalled" for that long and not show up until bottling?

BTW I'm going to stabilize before sweetening to avoid any blow ups I'm
just trying to learn more about what's going on with these wines.

John F

On 22 Jun 2005 09:10:04 -0700, "
> wrote:

>"If you sweeten the wine without stabilizing it, and then bottle it;
>you could end up with bottle bombs if fermentation starts again."
>
>What if you sweeten and age for another 6-8 weeks could fermentation
>stay "stalled" for that long and not show up until bottling?
>
>BTW I'm going to stabilize before sweetening to avoid any blow ups I'm
>just trying to learn more about what's going on with these wines.
>
>John F

I have seen a fermentation "stall" for four months, then resume. I
have read about much longer stuck fermentations.

If you sweeten, fermentation starts again, and you allow it to ferment
out the result will be higher alcohol content. It will also change the
ballance of the wine.

If your goal is to sweeten the wine then you should stabilize it with
sorbate. Also, my LHBS sells "wine conditioner" which is a
non-fermentable sweetener. I haven't tried it without sorbate,
though.

Truitt

> wrote in message
oups.com...
> "If you sweeten the wine without stabilizing it, and then bottle it;
> you could end up with bottle bombs if fermentation starts again."
>
> What if you sweeten and age for another 6-8 weeks could fermentation
> stay "stalled" for that long and not show up until bottling?
>
> BTW I'm going to stabilize before sweetening to avoid any blow ups I'm
> just trying to learn more about what's going on with these wines.
>
> John F


There is an old saying in the wine industry........The easiest way to start
a "stuck" fermentation is to bottle the wine.

Lum
Del Mar, California, USA

Thanks for the input everybody.

I tasted a thieved sample sweetened up a bit to see how it would be and
decided for sure I want to sweeten this wine so I did the sorbate.

John F

Isn't that the truth. lol
Darlene

"Lum" > wrote in message
...
>
> > wrote in message
> oups.com...
>> "If you sweeten the wine without stabilizing it, and then bottle it;
>> you could end up with bottle bombs if fermentation starts again."
>>
>> What if you sweeten and age for another 6-8 weeks could fermentation
>> stay "stalled" for that long and not show up until bottling?
>>
>> BTW I'm going to stabilize before sweetening to avoid any blow ups I'm
>> just trying to learn more about what's going on with these wines.
>>
>> John F
>
>
> There is an old saying in the wine industry........The easiest way to
> start
> a "stuck" fermentation is to bottle the wine.
>
> Lum
> Del Mar, California, USA
>
>