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can anybody give advice about how to make a drier tasting wine. Im not keen on how sickly sweet country wines can get. Some people say add half the amount called for then sweeten further on last rack if desired. What is the minimum amount of sugar u can use per gallon without lessening alcohol content if that makes sense. I realise some fruits and flowers have natural yeast which can convert further sugar but are there minimums or does ne1 have reduced sugar recipes theyve tried? Also, do u mix your sugar dry or make into a syrup first?

As a general rule of thumb, each pound of sugar contained within one gallon of liquid will result in 5% ABV. So - 2 lbs will give you a 10% alcohol wine. That's total sugar content - you do have to take into account the amount of sugars present in the fruit you're using to make the wine.

Not being too fussy, unless I know that I already have a lot of sugar from the wine ingtredients, I add a one kilo bag of sugar and end up with wines between 12 and 15% - I'm perfectly happy with that.

It's easier, but not essential, to make up a syrup to add to the demijohn.

The amount of sugar remaining in the finished wine depends to a great extent upon the yeast you use - some yeasts are not as alcohol-tolerant as others. A general-purpose wine yeast, however, should have no difficulty fermenting, say, 2.5 lbs of sugar right out, giving you a perfectly dry wine at about 12.5% ABV.

tbh if you buy a decent wine yeast.. it pretty much always works out the sugar
I reckon on 2 lbs for dry... 3 for medium dry. been trying to make a sickly wine.. but always works out dry and strong maybe i should buy a sautern yeast for that...

thanks 4 the advice folks. That is a very big help. My OH was not excited when i told him i was going to try to do some wines as when hes tried in the past he thought they were far to sweet. Ive had some in the past that were sickly and some quite dry and i prefer them drier myself. My brother-in-law who lives here with us is a master cidermaker and once was even the only commercial cider maker in scotland back in the 80's but, there are very few apples in caithness so, cider is out of the question and he never used yeast or sugar so doesnt know that end of things! So, we are hoping to do alot of wine with what we do have after a bit of experimentation. Weve got mainly gorse, red clover, elderflower, blackcurrant, oak leaf, gooseberry. Probably a few other things too. I've planted over 1000 trees again this year so maybe eventually lime blossom, cherry plum, mayflower. Goji berry wine? Sea buckthorn wine? Lol.

Ive got some sachets of gervin wine yeast. Sound good? A friend gave me a wee winemaking booklet and for example it gives a recipe for apple raisin wine. We know the apples and raisins have alot of sugar but, the recipe calls for 3.5 pounds of sugar. Seems like loads. So a kilo bag which is just under 2lbs. would be plenty, ay?

Got any tips for making the sugar syrup?

3.5 pounds, in any recipe, is way over the top. You can get yeasts which will ferment this out, but the resultant wine would be unpleasant because of the excess of alcohol (I know - how is that possible? ). The amount of sugar in your apples depends upon too many things to be sure - but apples do make cider unaided, so there's going to be a reasonable amount. Raisins are between 50% and 75% sugar by weight. A kilo of sugar on top of those (that's 2.2 pounds, by the way) could be too much. I'd calculate for 50% sugar by weight from the raisins, about 1.5 ounces sugar per pound of apples, then make the total sugar weight up to 2.5 pounds.

All of that presupposes that you're going to ferment on the pulp for a few days to maximise extraction.

Sugar syrup couldn't be easier - dissolve 1 pound of sugar in one pint of boiling water. Cool down by mixing with other liquid ingredients, and wait until it's back to room temperature before adding yeast or pectic enzyme (almost an absolute must for an apple wine).

Some people make an invert sugar solution (add lemon juice to the syrup and simmer for 10 minutes or so). In my experience, this makes little, if any, difference.

to make a realy good strong sweet wine takes a lot of skill just changing the yeast wont work tho a "port style " yeast helps as its high alcohol tollerant It will take about 10 lbs of dried fruits then you literaly feed the wine with sugar a table spoonfull at a time , the skill is in keeping it fermenting to much or to little sugar and it will stick and will not start again . to start it off mince up 1/2 the dried fruit (bananas figs etc ) and ferment on the pulp for a few days the transfer to a second bucked with the remaining fruit in it . Dont waste the fruit as you will get a second gallon of each if required . fresh fruit will introduce to much acid , whilst to little fruit makes a thin firey out of skilter wine

Ilike making my own homebrew,but it don't like my type one diabetes(lots of sugar)how can i make a nice wine with out to much of the sweet stuff.i like sweet really like sweet tastes but alas not allowed.

I don't know about diabetes, so maybe I'm speaking out of turn here - but you can make a dry wine (so all of the sugar has been converted to alcohol) and then sweeten it up using artificial sweeteners - one or two tabs per bottle.

Most diabetic dieticians will tell you to avoid using sweeteners mostly due to their laxative effect (which in combination with alcohol could possibly be stronger). My advice lizzylard, would be to just avoid sweet wines, except for the odd special occasion. As alcohol will lower your bloodsugar levels anyway, it shouldn't hurt now and again. Just don't overdo it!