Could not get my Muscadine wine above 5% alcohol by volume. ...

Could not get my Muscadine wine above 5% alcohol by volume. I added sugar and 1 1/2 days later it is at 15% !! What should I do. I don't think it needs more alcohol than that. Should I bottle it now? HELP!!!

So let me get this straight. You started to ferment it a day and a half ago? You added sugar to what, juice? Are you thinking that the hydrometer measures alcohol? It measures potential alcohol not actual alcohol you know, once fermentation starts it drops.

I started the Muscadine wine 4 to 5 weeks ago. I In 5 gallon containers I had 12 pounds of red scuppernongs and 12 pounds of white scuppernongs. To the grapes I added brewers yeast, sugar and distilled water. After 4 weeks I removed the skins. 2 weeks later I checked the progress of fermentation with this meter. The juice seemed to need more sugar so I added sugar two days ago. I think I got the fermentation process going again and I am afraid the alcohol content will be too high. What should I do. Be patient and wait? I am very new at wine making so you could say I am cluless. I have made excellent muscadine wine twice before but the process was done differently. I had no gadgets and I did not use yeast( instead let the natural yeast ferment the grapes) but these are scuppernongs and they had been washed before I got them so I was advised to use brewers yeast.

Well Marge I am not sure what to tell you. 4 weeks of fermentation really the stuff should be almost done if it's doing anything at all. What meter are you using?? Not a vinometer I hope they are very inaccurate, especially with residual sugar. Without accurate readings at the beginning there is no real way to tell what is going on, so my advice is to wing it and see what happens. Worst case you get a bunch of stuff that is terrible and you make a face and drink it or pitch it. Sorry!

I think I have figured out what is going on. I think the fermentation process was pretty much done and I added sugar which got it going again full force. The wine tastes pretty good so I think I will wait a week--check the meter for stability ( finished fermentation )several days and then siphon and bottle it. My meter is a triple scale made in France. I think my understanding of the meter was wrong since I had never used one in the past. Hopefully all will go well and I will have some fine tasting wine for Thankgiving and the Holidays. I undertsand that the older the wine the more mellow it will get?

Thanks for your help!!

Could be. It measures sugar and that gets inaccurate after a while as alcohol is less dense than water. Well now I am the inaccurate one, it really measures the density of water. When sugar is dissolved in water it becomes more dense so the scale floats higher. Keep in mind you need to measure temp too as the scale is calibrated for a certain temp range and should come with a paper so you can correct for temp.