Grape juice questions

[admin]

Pk, so I've stuck 4 litres of juice from Lidl in my demijohn and it's fermenting away nicely on some Young's wine yeast from Tesco.

I didn't add any sugar as I didn't want too vigorous a fermentation in the limited head space in the demijohn.

The SG of the juice is 1.070.

Two or three questions.

What can I expect the FG to be?
Should I let it ferment completely or do I stop it with campden tabs?

This is the tricky one. I want to add sugar to it so that it stops around 12% abv. Now that the fermentation has calmed down I'd like to add it, only I'm not sure of the calculations. Could someone answer how much I need to add?

[Will_D]

Just put 400 gms of sugar into a litre jug add wine from DJ and stir to disolve. Pour back into DJ

If theres a bit left undisolved, pour in some more from DJ and stir to disolve and pour back in

If there is still some left put the kettle on!!

Will

[LordEoin]

I never took fruit juice seriously so i've no idea what the OG was when I started.
But you seem an ok sort(and i'm curious now), so I poured out a trial jar to see...

originally I used 4L grape juice + 1kg sugar + young's wine yeast
Now, after about 10 months it's 1.036.

Of course i drank the trial jar.
And it tastes great.
Sweet (obviously with a FG of 1.036) and fruity.
There's been 2 rackings and topups along the way, so there's no way i can calculate its strength.

It seems to be deceptively strong though...

[Will_D]

It seems to be deceptively strong though...

That will be the effect of the sugar/sweetness.

Its a trick they learned when making fruit "Brandys" like Cherry Brandy. They are only about 22% alcohol but the amount of sugar in them burns the back of your throat like higher strength alcohols do.

Thats probably whats happenning.

A kilo is a fair old amount for a gallon of wine (that amount on its own will ferment out to about 11%.

I would normally use 300 to 400 gms on Lidl/Aldi juices.

If they are non concentrated fresh pressed juice from the shop or your garden then more would probably be needed.

Will