Merlot check...

With the prospect of a free weekend on the horizon, I wanted to take a reading of the Merlot to have something to compare against at the weekend to see if it has finally stopped fermenting. Hopefully it will have done, so that I can transfer it to secondary and begin the final stages before bottling. I have taken to storing the hydrometer in a bottle containing water and sanitising powder so that I can take readings without any further sanitising hassle. I rinsed it and gently dropped it into the wine, and as mentioned previously, I took a picture:

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Day	Time per bubble (secs)	Gravity
0	infinite	1.078
3	2
5	9
9	15
12	18
15	30
21	55	1.000
24	infinite (after hydrometer reading)	0.998
27	infinite	0.997
34	infinite	0.996

I think this has gone down a fraction more in the last week since the previous reading, but I'm hopeful it will now have finished. The target gravity of 990-994 is close enough for me to be fairly happy, but only time will tell whether this is close enough to still make a great wine.