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Congratulations on the new barrel. I have 2 now and really enjoy them. I want to echo what most have said above about S02 levels. I realized this weekend that I learned the hard way on that. I have a 15 month old Eclipse Lodi Cab that was my first wine to spend 3 months in a barrel. I added...

Sounds to me like another couple of carboys and a new wine rack will solve all your challenges :h

Jim, Congratulations, but I'd keep this quiet if I were you. You don't want others to horn in on your action. BTW, yesterday I got an email form somewhat at DocuSign telling me that my wire transfer is all set for me to approve. Thank goodness they took care of that for me because I don't...

I wasn't sure when I'd get up there for my lone lug of Chile Cab grapes so I didn't post earlier. Was able to get it late Saturday afternoon. Beautiful drive up there. Sunday morning I destemmed, squished, and added a little over half a teaspoon of pectic enzyme. I just checked the SG and was...

I've not seen that much when I used my AIO to rack to secondary unless I really rocked the carboy, but lately I've been using my siphon for this stage. I want to ensure there's enough CO2 to protect my wine in secondary. Though with the amount of CO2 I've had that's probably an unnecessary...

Before I moved back east I was a semi-pro landscape photographer out west, I also make silver and turquoise jewelry, woodwork, and have taken up kayak fishing on the Chesapeake.

Ditto what John said. They serve different purposes.

Here's a bit more information on how I do my cleaning and sanitizing because I think it makes it fairly simple. I have three 5 gallon buckets from Lowes, each one has the added screw on, air tight lid that they sell for things like keeping dog food in the buckets. When I know that I'll be...

I can't speak for others, but everything that touches my wine gets washed, rinsed and sanitized before each use, then washed and rinsed afterwards.

I would toss the oak bung into the nearest fireplace. I use silicone solid bungs on my barrels and they're great. I don't know if they make vented silicone bungs in barrel sizes, but they might. They would be my first choice if I were concerned about more fermentation while in a barrel. Or...

Hi, you read it right. The wetness did help them slide out easier, but wet or dry the new corks take quite a bit more force to push them out of the corker. But that's a good point. I may go back to wetting them in kmeta till these batches of corks are gone.

They are newly purchased corks. One bag of a hundred was purchased about five months ago, the other just two months ago. Half of the first bag of corks worked normally, the rest are hard. I got a new bag hoping it was a fluke but it has the same problem. Yesterday I tried some old premium...

FYI, I replaced the jaws, cleaned the area where they sit and I still have the same problem. I'm thinking now that perhaps my last couple hundred pack of corks are from an unusually dense cork source. Oh well, I will do the corking for a while then. My old jaws had some minor scuffing in them...

Thanks guys, I've ordered new jaws so we will see. Next step will be Italian corker if the new jaws don't work or when they wear out. There's no doubt a lot of pressure on the jaws with the premium #9s.

Thanks, but it's not an issue with the bottles. I've tested it without bottles and it is indeed pretty tough to push the corks out now. I used to soak my corks in Kmeta before bottling so I'm thinking that was some scouring or eating away at the plastic jaws which have created more friction.

My wife enjoys being the corker, labeler and foiler in our 'winery'. But the last couple batches she's not having much fun. Our Portuguese Floor Corker has become very hard to push the compressed cork out of the corker. The corker is about a year and a half old, probably 450 or more bottles...

Good point. I guess it's a fair trade to buy my own almonds in exchange for not having the smoking section of the plane separated from the non-smokers by a sign on the back of my seat. Ahhh, the good old days of flying..... Probably half the crowd is reading this saying "what's he talking...

Does this mean that I can start expecting to get my Smokehouse Almonds again? methinks not

It's time to share bottles with the rest of us now :)

That's fantastic guys, huge congratulations to both of you. So, to answer the original thread question, yes it Is worth the cost.