Sadlers Castillo (Italian Sryah) - confused what fermenting volume should be

[Simon_]

 I made up this 30 bottle kit the other night. Paraphrasing the instructions it said to bring 20 Liters of water up to room temp. Add the juice contents to a carboy, rinse out the bag and add the 20L to bring the volume up to 24L. The target O.G. was 1.086- 1.098 

I don't have a carboy big enough so I used a 25L bucket because I wanted to minimise head space
But the volume of juice was ~7.5 liters. I filled up to 24L and took a gravity reading and it was about 1.11. So I filled in pretty near to the top of bucket (it's probably a bit bigger than 25L) and brought the O.G. down to 1.1

I reckon it was better to have a slightly higher gravity rather than transfer to a bigger bucket and oxidise.

Have I misunderstood what the final volume should be?
What should I expect from the higher gravity?

[raindogxx]

I just started a 30 bottle kit from Beaverdale. Their instructions said to bring your final volume up to 23 litres.

Your OG sounds very high. Mine was 1.080 which is right in the middle of the suggested range. Did you stir everything very thoroughly after adding the water? My kit goes out of the way to mention you need to stir it thoroughly.

[Simon_]

Yeah I gave it a good stir. I'm surprised at the high o.g. too but specifically about what volume I should've filled it to

[raindogxx]

24L sounds about right to me. If you added too much water your wine will be a little weaker than intended. If you didn't add enough water it'll either be sweeter than intended or have a higher alcohol content than intended (could benefit from longer aging?). Either way, if you kept things clean it should turn out fine.

Before you do your next kit make sure you mark your vessel at the final volume your kit states. The sugar content of the kits are consistent so as long as you get the final volume correct you'll be in target range of the OG. If anybody has had a different experience please let us know. Basically, RDWHAHB.

Jon