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% Sweetness?

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D

DGettere

NewBee
Registered Member
Jan 30, 2009
29
0
0
When someone talks about the sweetness of a wine, can that equate to mead?

For instance I have heard people say that their wine was a Dry or semi-sweet, with less than 3% sugar or a sweet wine with 3% or more sugar. How do you calculate that % of sweetness?

According to the BJCP guidelines
Dry is TG of .990-1.010
Semi-sweet is a TG of 1.010-1.025
Sweet is 1.025-1.050

How do I figure that % sweetness (if possible) so I can talk with winemakers
and be on the same "scale"?

Thanks
DG
 
So if I'm understanding your question, it is "how do you convert the gravity numbers that we typically use into a percentage of residual sugar?"

The simple answer is you don't. Alcohol has a gravity much lower than 1.000 (0.787 if you were wondering), so the alcohol in the mix is a variable amount depending on the batch that throws the calculations off. A wine or mead with 8% ABV and a gravity of 1.005 has a lot less sugar than a mead with 20% ABV and a gravity of 1.005. You can get an accurate measurement by directly measuring the sugar using Clinitest tablets - but for a sweet batch, you'll have to dilute it into the range of the test (which is around 2% sugar if I recall)

With that said, you can rough out a guesstimate if you make some assumptions. Start with assuming that for a regular strength mead that a completely dry batch would have a gravity of 0.990. Based on tables like the one at brsquared you can say that every 10 gravity points (0.010) equates to roughly 27 grams per liter (or 2.7%) of sugar. So a mead that has a final gravity of 1.000 likely has 2.7 percent, and a mead with a gravity of 1.010 would be close to 5.4%. Mind you this is rough ballpark number that is based on a big assumption (that dry is 0.990 which is not true in most cases).

The NewBee Guide uses the following scale which is not too far from the BJCP numbers:

Dry: 0.990 – 1.006
Medium: 1.006 – 1.015
Sweet: 1.012 – 1.020
Dessert: 1.020+

What I find is that most meads have a lot less acid and tannin than wines. As a result, at the same level of sugar, meads may taste sweeter than wines because the acidity/tannin masks the perception of sweetness in the wine. Thus trying to compare them at the same sugar level may not be fair if the acidity/tannin is not also matched. Meads really are very different from wines.

I hope that helps to answer your question.

Medsen
 
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