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That's normal fallout, you want that. If you want to move the sediment along you can twist the carboy around a bit and knock the sediment off the sides. You're doing fine.

I took a long look at my set up last night and think I know why I had a blow out in this case. I'm using my wine fermentation closet with reflectix foil around it. With basement temps at 74 degrees I'm not adding any heat to the fermentation closet. But with the door closed to the closet I...

I've only made the WE Eclipse version of G-miner and it's our favorite summer wine. I make it per instructions. This is the wine I will serve whenever I have a diverse gathering and it has always pleased just about everyone, even the big red drinkers like me. I made a couple cases for my...

Congratulations! That's a very hard thing to do. Now try to keep a dozen for another year. Drink some of your newer wines without guilt as a sacrifice to age your Super Tuscan longer. I did that with my second kit and I still have a dozen bottles after 32 months and it's now a source of...

I don't think I'd add water later to bring it back to spec. I could add it after the first 3-4 days of most active fermentation and hope it blends well, but I think I'd rather have a slightly denser wine than add water later. Though it may not matter. When I look at Tim's pictures it looks...

Thanks to @Brian55 for posting this link to Tim Vandergrift's update on his Extended Maceration experiment: http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=tim+vandergrift+grapeskin+update&view=detail&mid=80E80DF3F983460B118180E80DF3F983460B1181&FORM=VIRE While it sounds like Tim is just as excited...

Thanks for posting this. I've been waiting for his update for many months. Very interesting what he has to say. I will have to watch it again to take it all in, but so far so good for extended maceration.

Also, all dry whites have tasted very good right away to me.

For me, a premium red wine kit will outshine a low end red wine kit at any stage of aging. I recommend you buy the best kit you can afford in a variety you like.

Norcal, Thanks again for this thread as it's what gave me the ideas for the room I built last June. Like yours, mine is humming along like a champ. So simple and relatively inexpensive, but efficient and perfect for the task. Well done.

As a former hiker and backpacker all over the southwest, I often used the phrase "trails are made for people who lack imagination." Seems to fit with recipes as well. Both assume that you know what you're doing, why you want to deviate, acceptance of challenges and unexpected results, and how...

Good luck on the survey and your class. Interesting topic. I look forward to seeing the results.

You're fine. Oak cubes rarely sink for me. The protein rings I've seen show up as a white line around the carboy at the wine level. If you tilt the carboy you might see it run down the inside as with milky look. The floatie you see is fine. Could be yeast, or effects from the clarifiers. You...

Good decision on accepting splits, makes a lot of sense for a lot of reasons.

Are you trying to build a fermentation area, a wine storage cellar, or an all in one area? Here's what I did for a fermentation area to keep temps at 73-75 degrees. If I had the space I would have insulated it and added the reflectix foil, but for my small closet the foil works well enough...

Ditto what Paul said.

What worked best for me is to dry the outside of the barrel, then rub the barrel wax where the source of the leak is, then touch the wax with a hot iron. The wax instantly melts, spreads and soaks in quickly. The key is figuring out where the leak is, it's probably well away from the 'pool' of wine.

I'm not sure, but my experience leads me to think that material, such as grapes, create points in fermenting wine from which CO2 bubbles are formed and released. Thus, wine with skins will degas more during fermentation than just juice. At least that's a theory I have based on loose skins versus...

If you have a relatively cool area, like a basement, that is dark and away from heat sources I think you'll be fine as long as the kit is fairly new. By new I mean manufactured date, not the date you got it. Most kits will have labels with a date code that you can decode to see when it was put...

I would love to find a hydrometer with the scale engraved in the glass. On my current batch before I pitched the yeast I calibrated and my hydrometer was off by .009. When I checked the wine at the end of primary the same hydrometer was off by .004. Color me frustrated. I think what happens...