Work out wine sugar addition instantly with clear inputs, formula shown and shareable results.
Potential alcohol is about 0.59 times the Brix reading, and roughly 17 g of sugar per litre is needed for each additional percent of alcohol. Chaptalisation raises alcohol without adding flavour, so calculating the exact deficit avoids the hot, unbalanced result that comes from over-sugaring by guesswork.
Potential alcohol
potential ABV % = Brix x 0.59
Sugar addition
sugar grams per litre = (target ABV - potential ABV) x 17
potential ABV % = Brix x 0.59. Potential alcohol is about 0.59 times the Brix reading, and roughly 17 g of sugar per litre is needed for each additional percent of alcohol.
Chaptalisation raises alcohol without adding flavour, so calculating the exact deficit avoids the hot, unbalanced result that comes from over-sugaring by guesswork.
Enter must volume, current sugar reading, target alcohol. The defaults shown are a realistic worked example — swap in your own figures to get a result you can use.