Recent content by BarrelMonkey

So are you planning to add more yeast at bottling? The process I described above was for wine that was still actively fermenting when I bottled it. Granted, racking by itself will not result in a sterile product - but if you're going to let it ferment dry (and particularly if you're going to...

I racked off about 1/2 way through fermentation (largely to get rid of the flowers and lemon zest) then just bottled when SG/brix reached what I thought was a good range. I believe I bottled directly from the fermentation carboy but left any gross lees in the bottom. It's not a bad idea to rack...

The larger spacing is typical for American vineyards. In some area of France it's more common to see metre-by-metre spacing (roughly vines 3ft apart, rows 3ft apart), in fact I think it might be mandatory for some regions like Champagne. As @tjmeyer notes you can't get a tractor between such...

More than that! Champagne is typically 4-6atm, and the champagne bottles that I purchased last year for my sparkling project are rated at 1.6MPa, which is >15atm 😳 For sure... Sparkling wine producers take great pains to reduce potential sites of nucleation in the wine, most notably tartrate...

PLEASE DON'T DO THIS! Putting sparkling wine in standard wine bottles is very dangerous, they aren't designed to hold the pressure. You need proper champagne bottles. Crown caps work fine, though you can also get plastic champagne 'corks' that don't require a corker to insert them. Bear in mind...

Over the past few days I've been gradually getting my vegetable starts in the ground, after a week of hardening off. So far, 22 tomatoes (10 different kinds) and 15 peppers (10 different kinds), though there are at least 6 more 'must have' pepper plants to go in. Plus tomatillos, eggplant, swiss...

From what everyone says on this forum, your experience is typical. I made my first elderberry in 2021, so it's still a relatively new thing for me. My comments at bottling were 'sour, thin and tannic'; my wife thought it was like 'kool aid before you've added the sugar'. We almost didn't...

Perhaps also worth noting that, aside from commercial producers (who really do have to get contracts in place well in advance) it's really still very early to get grapes reserved for small lots/home winemaking. As noted above, most growers will want to sell commercial quantities in preference to...

1. If I have nice clean grapes, I don't add at crush unless there are extenuating circumstances (eg I am not going to be able to pitch yeast for a few days). Otherwise, as others have said 25-50ppm based on must volume. (If you're in NJ and receiving CA grapes, it might be good insurance to add...

Nicely done! How much (%) H2O2 did you use? Most protocols say to use 3% but, bearing in mind that it does go off over time I always use 30% straight from the (drugstore) bottle. I only need 10mL at a time so a bottle lasts me a while...

Yes, thanks I edited my post, what was I thinking... I'm sure 1000L/min would have glass and phosphoric acid flying everywhere 😳

I don't really know since I haven't done this, but it seems it would be easier to just start with 2x12" glass tubes rather than cut 24" in half. Easier still, maybe you can get tubes that already have a tapered end? I'm not an expert on aquarium pumps but (at least in my setup) you want a flow...

I came across this article a while ago - it describes an inexpensive homemade AO apparatus. For phosphoric acid he uses tile grout cleaner from the hardware store :) I've had good luck using Lab Alley for lab chemicals. $35 for 1L phosphoric acid. They seem OK shipping to residential addresses...

I have an AO setup in my home lab: The sample goes in the sidearm flask on the left (in an ice bath for FSO2) and the evolved SO2 is drawn up the tube and into the small tube with the violet indicator. The vacuum pump is that big thing on the right with the red light. It is pretty...

I've done this after fermentation when I couldn't press out for several days... picture here. I was mainly concerned with warding off fruit flies, but protecting the must against infection makes sense too. I haven't done it for extended maceration/cold soak prior to ferment but I think the idea...