I bought 5 Walmart watermelons. I got about 4 gallons of juice using a mesh bag to extract. Not a lot of fiber. I added 6 lbs of white sucrose. That brought og to 1.09. The original juice was very sweet. Surprisingly, a lot of flavor in the juice. Added enough water to get about 5 gallons. Pitched red star premier blanc (used to be their champagne yeast). Added 4 tsp of yeast nutrient. The fermentation, as usual for this yeast ime, was robust and completed in about 3 days. My primary fermenter is a 6 gallon plastic bucket with screw lid. It has been a week. I am about to transfer to a glass carboy for aging. I intend to add sodium metabisuphite at that time. I try to avoid sm with original must. IME, it attenuates primary fermentation. I am a fairly experienced beer brewer. Just started with wines and meads, mainly because brewing beer is SO much more labor intensive. My question is that my final gravity was 0.92. That is about %22 abv. I was targeting about %15. Is 22% possible with red star premier blanc? The wine is very pink. Of course I had to draft off a quart. It is very dry and is like drinking paint thinner. Very strong alcohol. Harsh. As expected after primary fermentation. Even so, given the flavor profile, it seems it may be very good in a few months. So, sodium metabisuphite and into carboy. Filled to the top to prevent oxidation, acetobacter. Any advice on how long to bulk age? Also, it is very dry and I had considered this to be targeted as a desert wine. Any specific / detailed advice on back sweetening, when? How much? How to measure? Will it just be to taste? Which sugar? I have corn sugar, sucrose, and brown sugar. I had intended to put potassium sorbate before back sweeting. I also have a Peach cobbler wine in primary fermentation. It has completed. Similar og, but with dark brown sugar. Any advice/experience there?
Well at 22% im not surprised it tastes the rocket fuel🤣 that has yo be the tolerance for that yeast so any fermentables you add now will add sweetness and flavor. I make a ton of wines and meads and never add any sulfites and never had a problem. I like my wine live for medicinal purpose
White sucrose sugar… A dry-ing agent…
So… you are an advanced home brewer? With an ABV that high… you’ll need a few years… perhaps decades for it to settle down…
So tell me, why would you want a wine so… big? As a home brewer, I chase a flavor.
Sneezles61
I have not made a watermelon wine so can not help you there and I agree wine is so much easier. I see what happened you were expecting FG to be 0.98 or so and wound up with 0.92…big difference!
When I use sucrose in beer brewing for belgian styles, if I use too much its harsh. I made a Belgian strong that had to sit for over a year and it was still harsh but the year helped. Your strategy to back sweeten appears sound. When I back sweeten beer, I use puree and keep it refrigerated in keg so don’t have to worry about bottle/keg bombs. Finding the right puree flavor to use is trial and error. I buy puree from amoretti Craft Purees – Amoretti in smaller pump bottles so I can try various flavors in glasses. Click craft puree. I keep puree in kegerator and find it very useful. Just made a milkshake IPA with added blood red orange. Tried the grapefruit as well and it dramatically improved the flavor.
With 22% the levers to pull are time, puree addition to sweeten, and blending. Good luck!
thanks for the awesome information.
