How to Vary the Strength of Your Wine

With just about anything, it’s the little details that end up making the biggest difference. So it is with your home wine making kits, where just the slightest alterations to the process can produce a significantly different tasting drink, as well as a vastly more or less potent concoction, perfect for those times where you’re simply looking to relax and enjoy a fine drink, and those other times where you want to get rip roaring smashed as soon as possible (or at least somewhat drunk).

Kicking it Up a Notch

For the process for strengthening your wines is rather simple. Believe it or not, sugar is the main source of the alcoholic content in your future wine, so the general rule of thumb is that adding more sugar will create a more potent wine. As a general guideline, a pound of sugar per gallon of wine amounts to approximately a 5% alcoholic content rate, though this is also slightly affected by other factors such as storage methods.

Rather than using all of the desired sugar at once as per usual home wine making standards, the sugar should be added in stages, as soon as the previous stage of sugar has completed fermentation. This can be judged by monitoring your wine’s bubble production. Of course you can’t simply toss in all of this additional sugar without making further adjustments. Too much sugar will make the wine too sickly sweet to consume, so there are two additional steps you should take.

Firstly, you should add a comparable percentage of yeast to the original recipe as you are sugar. For example, if you’ll be adding twice as much sugar, you should also add twice as much yeast. The yeast is a necessary ingredient in the fermentation process. Likewise, you should add a touch of tartaric acid into your brew to take some of the sweetness out of your sugary (and soon to be highly alcoholic) treat. About half an ounce of tartaric acid per gallon of wine should be enough to compensate for the additional sugar.

The most important thing is to ensure your brew ferments and ages properly, as slight adjustments to its taste can always be made afterwards. Another way to raise the alcoholic content in your wine is to add a little bit of brandy too it after the aging process has been completed. This is common in commercial production of port wine.

Cutting it Down to Size

Likewise, in the event you would like to lessen the alcoholic content in your wine, try dropping the amount of sugar and yeast as stated in the original recipe. As with stronger wines you may need to compensate slightly in other areas afterward to adjust the taste to an ideal level.

If you’ve found the ideal wine for making at home, but aren’t quite satisfied with its alcoholic content one way or the other, don’t despair. With some fine adjustments and an adventurous spirit, any home wine can be moulded into the perfect accompaniment for just about any situation.