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I picked up some Mango Nectar and a bag of blood oranges today for winemaking. I'm debating on how best to add the blood oranges. My typical MO would be to zest 2 oranges and steep in hot water, then add that "tea" to primary along with the fresh juice. But I'm wondering if it would be better...

You could add some welch's white grape juice (or white grape peach). They taste good and are clear, so it shouldn't affect your clarity at this stage. Plus it would add a nice complementary flavor to the peaches.

I second the above that the honey likely isn't burnt and you should make a mead out of it. Normal bouchet process gets the honey close to 200F IIRC, so 140F should be a good temp for this.

I second the double dose of kmeta and also racking into a smaller carboy with less headspace.

You could also use a different type of enclosure than a cork, one that is impermeable to oxygen. Similar to bulk aging with an airlock, the wine will age differently (without O2) but it also won't have oxidation issues in the long run.

You will need a really good quality cork. As an example, Nomacorks are synthetic and are designed based on the desired aging length. You want to limit the amount of oxygen transferred through the cork so the wine doesn't oxidize. You will also need to bump up the oak and tannin in the wine...

My friend naturally carbonates beer and uses 1oz sugar per gallon. I would image it would be about the same for wine too.

My goal is to have a semi-sweet sparkling cider, so I was planning to pasteurize the bottles once they carbonated because if not, they might explode with all the extra sugar in there. But thank you for the timeline, I'm going off some basic research for my timeline but it's very helpful to know...

I made cider with fresh apple juice (UV pasteurized, no preservatives) from my local market. Pitched EC1118 on 9/22, fermented dry, cleared with superkleer. I then added a can of apple juice concentrate and bottled in flip-tops. I also filled a 20oz plastic pop bottle as a tester that I can use...

For what it's worth, I think Riesling and apple would be an awesome combo.

You can buy some time by cooling the juice which will slow the fermentation. But once it starts, you would need an egregious amount of kmeta to stop it. I would pitch 2-3 packets of your chosen yeast asap. The wine yeast will hopefully out-compete the natural yeast and should take over the...

I personally use bottled spring water. I am of the opinion that your choice of water is a "do no harm" type decision. You want to avoid adding chlorine to the wine, as it can "cork", the wine later. Spring water is less than $1/gallon usually, so I would use that.

Yeah, you'll be fine. Just make sure you have an airlock on it. Kit instructions tend to rush things, so if you have to delay for a few days, it's no big deal.

A metheglin cyser!!

I think you did it the right way by using the cider in place of water in the must. I tried sweetening with cider once, and you need to add a lot to get the sweetness up beyond a semi-dry. It also blew away most of the honey aspects of the mead and tanked the ABV. If you want to sweeten with...

No worries @Jon Jones all of us on here are happy to help! 1.050 SG sounds a lot more reasonable. I would assume you'll finish somewhere between 1.040-1.020 depending on your specific yeast strain and conditions. So your fermentation seems to be going well then. With time, it will calm down...

Mostly looks good. Though if your SG readings are correct then you have essentially no alcohol in there, so I don't know how you would have a strong alcohol smell. You're using a hydrometer? When you stir the must, do you get a bit of fizz? If you added the acid blend, you're probably okay on...

Looks like a good guide to me. Before trying to restart a fermentation, you should figure out why it stalled in the first place. What is your fermentation temp? Do you notice any unpleasant smells out of the normal "fermentation funk"? Did you add enough yeast? 1 packet is good for 5gal/23L...

That's quite a high OG, if that went fully dry you're looking at 20% ABV. So I'm guessing you added sugar to get a high OG so when the yeast reaches its tolerance, you're left with a sweet wine, correct? But you should have had more of an SG drop after almost 2 weeks. Your fermentation may...

Everything looks fine to me, no signs of mold or infection. Typically we rack to a glass carboy for "secondary". Your wine is no longer fermenting actively at this point, so you want it under an airlock with as little headroom as possible to protect from oxidation. I would recommend waiting a...