Alcofrolics Anyonymous....

It's most likely the wine was started with a very high sugar content/OSG and when there was enough alcohol + residual sugar + residual sorbate to inhibit further fermentation the wine 'stuck'.

To calculate the amount of residual sugar + alcohol content, it would require either/or the recipe used or the OSG.

As there's now an alcohol/water/sugar mix producing that 1.085 SG reading, the amount of sugar will be greater than in SG tables because they are for a water/sugar solution, and the alcohol with it's lower SG than water will now mask some of the sugar content.

P.S. Many believe there's no scientific basis in the claim that boiling liquid containing Potassium Sorbate will get rid of it. This claim appeared in a book written some 50 - 60 years ago and has been accepted as gospel truth ever since, but there were many errors in that book and some survive numerous reprints to this day.

Potassium Sorbate forms Sorbic Acid when added to foodstuffs as a preservative and has a boiling point of 228 °C, so cannot be boiled off. The origins of the notion preservatives can be removed by boiling may be based on boiling liquids to drive off sulphites in solution, but they're in the form of dissolved gas that is released when the liquid is heated.

Carp anglers making their own boilies for bait add Sorbate as a preservative, as their name indicates, boilies are boiled and it does not affect the Sorbate preservative.

'High Juice' type wines are notorious for either sticking or finishing oversweet, especially if using some old recipes with ridiculously high amounts of sugar. As the alcohol content increases sorbic acid becomes more effective in preventing yeast from multiplying. Using a large, vigorously fermenting yeast starter will help, as will oxygenating the must (boiled syrup requires re-oxygenation) and fermenting it out in a bucket rather than under airlock.


P.P.S. Unless adding both Sulphite & Sorbate to stop further fermentation, always check the SG of a wine before bottling, or you could get exploding bottles at a later date.

 

1Kg/gall is a sensible total sugar content, so using 9Kg of added sugar for 5.5 galls (1.64Kg/gall) should have set alarm bells ringing.

Google suggests the High Juice sugar content to be around 100g per 1L bottle, so 600g in the juice plus another 9Kg of added sugar = 9.6 Kg in 25L/5.5 galls = 1.75Kg/gall = a whopping 4lbs/gall = off the scales of specific gravity tables!

A current SG of 1.085 indicates nearly 2lbs 8ozs/gall of residual sugar and approx. 8% ABV from the 1lb 8ozs of sugar that fermented.

The difficulty now is that if you were dilute to a sensible sugar content (for an ABV of say 12.5%, OSG equivalent of 1.095), that would require adding another 3 bottles of High Juice to avoid diluting the flavour, but by doing so that would add yet another 300g of sugar and so on - do you really want to risk buying more High Juice and spending more money and time on this wine with the risk of having it sticking yet again.

Diluting the contents of 4 bottles of this wine to make a trial one gallon 5 Litres would get the sugar content down to equivalent of OSG 1.085/12% ABV/728ml High Juice per gallon. Use a re-start yeast if you have any (handy to have one kept in the fridge for emergencies), and use the 'double up' method which consists of making a yeast starter then adding an equal amount of stuck wine, when that is all fermenting away vigorously adding an equal amount of stuck wine and so on until all the stuck wine has been added and is fermenting.

4 bottles = 3L so you have a further 2L to add and you could make big yeast starter of 2L, add to 2 bottles of stuck wine in a covered bucket and put it somewhere warm to get started,then add the other 2 when that's fermenting vigorously. When that's going strong transfer to a demijohn and fit an airlock. If that works you can do the rest on a larger scale.

 

My god this home made "rocket fuel" sounds very complicated from what I have been reading above.
It reminds me of my granny who had what she called her ginger beer "plant" and she made great ginger beer. How? no idea, all I do know is that she kept the bottles in her coal cellar and you somewhat "ran the gauntlet" if she asked you to go and get a bucket of coal as certain batches had a habit of exploding. She used those old fashioned glass bottles with the hinge and rubber stopper to bottle the stuff. Many a day the quiet was broken by a load bang and the sound of glass breaking swiftly followed by a few well chosen words from Gran!

 

If it has the same amount of sugar it will stick like the first batch. Even if using recipes from books or web check them first as many use silly amounts of sugar.


P.S. I've just started another 24 gallons of quick maturing 'Easy White' wine (1L White Grape Juice + 1L Apple Juice/Etc. per gallon) which has only 2lbs of sugar in the gallon for a light, fast maturing (and cheap) wine, better than any 3 for £10 stuff, which will ferment down from 1.075 to 0.990, a drop of 85 points, which using the divide by 7.36 method should be a minimum of 11% ABV, which is good enough for me considering there'll be 144 bottles ready to drink by Xmas.

 

Waitrose sell it for £1.75, but I've been getting mine from Ocado setting up new accounts and waiting until getting £25 off first £60 orders codes with free delivery, plus if signing up for their newsletter then cancelling they will send a £5 code to re-signup that can be stacked with £25 code getting everything for half price, getting some WGJ juice, plus some other stuff like half price cheese on offer with our last order. Last year there was a glitch where a pay with Paypal money off code worked with a first order code plus the email newsletter £5 to get something like £40 off £60 with free delivery and my '£60' order consisted entirely of WGJ.

https://www.ocado.com/webshop/produ...by4kVZWDiHXA02Ajv6pvQxoCzarw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

http://www.waitrose.com/shop/DisplayProductFlyout?productId=26275&source=sho_&utm_source=google+shopping&utm_medium=organic+gs&utm_campaign=google+shopping&tsrc=vdna&gclid=CjwKEAjw7svABRCi_KPzoPr53QoSJAABSvxfXxqDc1qPugTXdsJ4XQ-P_kw3OZKC6I0emBfR79s5ahoCKrHw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds&dclid=CMu_3bae_c8CFcIC0wod3xEFEA




P.S. If storing carton juices in a shed, make sure it's mouse free as they nibble at the base of cartons letting the juice run out.

 

The standard Easy White is 1L WGJ +1L AJ, but I prefer a 5 gall batch made with 5 x WGJ, 3 x AJ and 2 x Pineapple Juice. PJ is 2 for £1.50 in Tesco at the moment.

If making small trial batches where only part of a carton is required, say 400ml for 1 gall of that PJ variation above, save the remaining 600ml of PJ by dividing amongst 3 Value freezer bags, cutting the top off the empty carton, placing the 3 x 200mm portions inside with a square layer of cardboard between to prevent any sticking together, and it'll store efficiently in your freezer.

Morrisons appear to have discontinued stocking Princes juices (as Tesco did in 2013), so it might be worthwhile checking their reduction area, although they may not be as cheap as when I stocked up a while ago when they were on special offer at 2 for £1. I got loads of their Pear & Apple (50:50) as Pear Juice is normally very expensive to buy, and that juice now appears to be unavailable anywhere.

 

@fat controller If trying above quick maturing juice wine, I add 1 teaspoon of Glycerin (Glycerol) per gallon, which helps create a more rapid smoothness and adds a bit more 'mouth feel' to a wine made using only 2L of juice. Do not buy expensive tiny bottles from the baking section at supermarkets, but get a 200ml bottle from Boots (normally near cough medicines). This is produced naturally in fermentations, so it's just helping it a bit (or quite a bit probably).

http://www.boots.com/en/Value-Health-Glycerin-B-P-200ml_852418/

@ £1.39 it's only a few pence per gallon.

And here's a good use for grow bag trays, much better than wasting them growing a couple of tomato plants when they'll accommodate 3 x 5 gall fermenters or buckets, no more worrying about stuff foaming out the top and spoiling the flooring any more



Hmmm, seem to have room for another 12 gallons there, better get some more on the go.


P.S. They start out at 5 galls, then get topped up to 6 galls when they die down a bit after a week.