To who it my concern,

I received a basic wine fermenting kit for Christmas from you guys. And when the peaches ripened on my tree I picked them and started my new hobby. I've found your site very informational and a great help. I just had a few questions I have run into. It's been four days and my wine already has gone from 13% potential to 0% I added enough sugar to bring it back to 3.5%. Is this in any way normal or do you have any information concerning this. I'm not sure yet if I should move it to my secondary fermenter. I'm going to wait for your e-mail so please e-mail me soon.

Thank you!

Christopher
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Dear Christopher,

The fact that you had a beginning reading of 13% on your hydrometer's "potential alcohol" scale and then just four days later had a reading of 0% would indicate two things:

1) The fermentation had produced 13% alcohol at that point. This is calculated by taking the beginning hydrometer reading of 13% and subtracting from that the ending reading of 0%.

2) The fermentation created this alcohol at a very fast pace. While fermenting that much alcohol in just four days is not unheard of, most recipes you run across will not assume that the rate of fermentation will go that fast.

Fermentations will go fast or slow based on a number of factors, from the must's temperature to yeast nutrition. The primary factors that effect the rate of fermentation can be found in the article "Top 10 Reasons For Fermentation Failure" on our web site.

Regardless of the reason, a fast fermentation is of little consequence to the wine. The fact still remains that the fermentation did what it needed to do--make alcohol.

Moving the wine to a secondary container--with an air-lock--would be wise at this point. The amount of CO2 gas that can potentially come off a wine at this point is too little to protect it from airborne contaminants such a bacteria and mold spores.

Adding more sugar at this point was probably not a good idea. Yeast have limitations as to the amount of alcohol they can produce. Most have an upper limit of around 14%-16%, and even this amount can only be reached if the conditions are favorable--temperature, nutrients, etc. If the new sugars you added ferment out completely that means your wine will have 16.5% alcohol, 13% plus the 3.5% from the sugar you added later--and everything's fine--but if the yeast do not ferment all the new sugars you added you will have what is called a "stuck fermentation", a situation where the yeast are not fermenting at all but could start up at any time, including after the wine is bottled. Hopefully, this is not the case.

Best Wishes,
Customer Service at E.C. Kraus