MLF, Oak, Chardonnay, evOak staves QuestionsGood Evening- I've been speaking to a few people here privately around oaking different wines and upon their advice have purchased some Stavin cubes, medium and medium + toasts...
I buttume that you are referring to determining alcohol level when you refer to the hydrometer below. There are several methods of determining alcohol level but the primary one used by home winemakers is the hydrometer. But that is not the only thing it is useful for.
First it will give you a good indication of how much sugar you have in your starting wine. This is useful in predicting the potential alcohol level and in making sure that the dry wine you want to make does not turn out sweet.
Next, it can be a useful tool to determining how the wine is progressing. It can be used to determining when to go from primary to secondary and when you have a stuck ferment.
Also, it can be a good indicator of what the sugar level is when the wine is finished. This is more important to know than exactly how much alcohol you have. This will tell you whether you need to stabilize your wine to prevent wine bottle plants.
In other words knowing the starting and ending hydrometer reading is useful in themselves and along the way, if you know the hydrometer reading at beginning and end of the fermentation, you can get a good estimate of the alcohol level.
Ray
