Additional Fermentables

[StevieR]

I've been looking at some of the wine kits available on the Easybrew website (amongst others), and have noticed that some wine kits require additional fermentables....in some cases upto 4kg of sugar

I know that we a beer kit requires additional fermentables I would normally replace the sugar with spray malt, the question is do I add sugar to these wine kits or is there a more suitable alternative

Cheers,
Stephen

[steve_flack]

Like beer kits I think you get what you pay for with wine kits and the more expensive ones (really expensive) will just use grape concentrate and no added sugar.

[StevieR]

I agree, the Shiraz I'm fermenting at the moment is a Beaverdale and requires no further fermentables.

However, in the same way that a cheap beer kit can be enhanced using spray malt (instead of the suggested sugar), I was curious as to whether there was an alternative for the sugar in cheaper wine kits ??

[johnmac]

Apple juice? I'll get me coat...

[lockwood1956]

What a lot of people do is buy two of the cheapie kits and make one batch with them, thus increasing the grape concentrate of the kit by 100%, this can be a good way to get a decent size batch at a still reasonable price, morrisons are doing the magnum kits on three for two at the moment, they say medium on the tin but if you want you can make them dry by not adding the stabiliser supplied with the kits (it contains non fermentable sugars)

cheers
bob