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Did you add any glycerin? It can improve mouthfeel, which I could see the difference between a thin wine and a wine with a little more to it. Not a good explanation, I know.

I don’t use racks for flip tops (aka Grolsch-style). I use totes. Not a great system as the bottles are just tall enough that the lid won’t completely snap down.

Only bottles with corks need to be on their sides. Screw capped bottles and the flip top bottles can be stored standing upright.

Raisins do not take the place of oak in the primary fermentation. Raisins add flavor and sugar. Oak chips help prevent oxidation by being a sacrificial tannin.

Without seeing the instructions, I would use the light chips in primary, and the toasted chips in bulk aging. The toast is for flavoring, which will not happen to a great degree in the primary fermentation.

Yes it is quite common to leave the gross lees in the wine as long as there is still some CO2 being generated. In fact, the Fine Wine Kits have instructions that say to keep the skin packs in the fermenter for 2 weeks.

I prefer blends as the finished blend is often better than either of the two or more components. This chart shows flavor profiles of various grapes. Note that Bordeaux (Cab, Merlot, Cab Franc) has flavor profiles that compliment each other. Where one grape is low on a certain flavor, the others...

Freeze all the fruit, take out of the freezer the day before pitching yeast. At sugar addition it will still be very cold. Simmer raisins/prunes in water, just enough to cover the fruit. Add to the fermentation bucket. Simmer equal amounts of water and sugar with a tsp of lemon juice (helps...

Oxygen permeability of silicone is higher than for other typical plastics. And yet Grolsch-style bottles are still available, they have not gone out of favor. Beer stored in these probably don’t get long term storage though. One advantage of the Grolsch is you can fill the bottle very close to...

3 month is typical but some people extend that quite a bit. It’s a risk because the potassium metabisulfite exhausts it’s effectiveness as it binds with oxygen/contaminants. I cannot speak to erithrytol, if it’s a synthetic sweetener I would avoid it. I trust natural ingredients. If your wine...

If you have vineyards nearby, reach out to them about volunteering to help during harvest season. It would be good experience, gaining helpful tips, knowing what to do and not to do, etc. in exchange they may be willing to sell you fruit at a discount, or at least ensure you get something.

You have some misinformation. You can degas anytime you want. However it’s not necessary to degas if you bulk age the wine long enough. At EVERY racking, you should be adding your Campden tablets. 3 month intervals are typical for a racking schedule. Back sweetening (with sugar or honey) can...

Racked my ‘24 blackberry, 2 weeks after pressing. What was an estimated 11g of pressed wine, now looks like a little over 8g of racked wine. A half-gallon of wine went to the fridge. So the 91 lbs of fruit has netted 8g of mostly clear wine. More loss is expected at further rackings.

I bottled my 2023 Blackberry port today. Used some Grolsch-style bottles for some of it. Thanks again @DrGriz!

I have heard that the skins have a lot of tannin in them. To me that’s a plus, will help with oxidation issues during fermentation. If it’s too tannic, that can be dealt with later. I would give those peaches a good rinse and add Kmeta at thawing to kill any stray bacteria. The brown spots don’t...

Yeast selection is a matter of taste. Check out any number of yeast guides on the Internet. I use the Morewine site a lot.

I haven’t used tablets in over 30 years, but once ground up, 1/4 tsp per a 5g carboy is the dosage. If you’re racking at 3 month intervals, use that dosage. If you’re racking sooner than that, I think you would be safe with a pro-rated dosage.

Juice buckets are very likely to come in at exactly SG of 1.090, and a reasonable acid. They do not need any sugar unless that is your plan. Absolutely ferment your 7 gallons in two batches, I even put a different yeast in each bucket to give the final wine a little complexity. You are on the...

If all the cleansing protocols haven’t corrected the issue you may have a permanently etched surfaced. If you’ve done both base-based and acid-based cleanings, I would guess, and to emphasize, its a guess, you have an etched surface. It may be perfectly usable for wine making, just might require...

Glad to have you back. Water! That’s a big win! Just read an article on Tempranillo being planted in Texas, in the high plains I think. It’s a grape not usually found in juice buckets, which we non-California winemakers have at our disposal. What have you planted and what are you adding? And...