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That's reassuring to hear, I hope mine does the same. Made my first wine this year and currently in the tanks ageing. It tastes like red wine and there's no off taste or anything, but it just doesn't taste interesting - there's not much in the way of fruit, complexity, tannins, depth etc. I have...

Personally, I wouldn't use oak chips that are sold for using in a smoker, I would stick with oak that is sold specifically for wine making. But that's just my opinion - I'm very careful of what I put in my wine after the time and money I have put into it! You might be ok, maybe someone else has...

Yeah that looks identical to yours, Aj. So looks like it is nothing to worry about too much, I will just leave it there till I rack off the oak in a few months. I wonder if any of the tartaric I added before going in to the cooler actually remains or if it has all just dropped out. Thanks all...

So about 10 days ago I racked my Cab Sauv after completion of MLF and dosed with SO2 and also added a bit of tartaric as the pH was a bit high. This went back into my 25litre S/S tank filled to the top and then into my new chiller and has been held at 50 - 55F since then. Needed to adjust the...

Hi Korehan, nice to see another UK based person here. You're very lucky to have a piece of land large enough to grow 220 vines, especially in London. I have only managed to squeeze 12 vines into my garden, so not enough for wine! It was a good summer for grapes this year in the UK so I expect...

So do you need to keep an airlock on the vessel when aging to allow the wine to degas and release CO2? Or do you only need to use the airlock for a short period after racking? Just wondering, I have just started aging my red and was going to put bung the airlock hole to make it completely air...

Racked my Cab Sauv into its tank for aging, SO2 additions and some acid adjustments to bring the pH down (started a separate thread on this as results were a little unexpected). So now have 25 litres (plus 2 litres in small DJ as top up) which I have put in my new Climadiff wine cooler to age at...

Unfortunately I have a completely unrefined palette so its difficult to say...I can't tell much difference after the addition, it still tastes of wine and tastes ok. Don't notice it tasting like it has gotten too acidic. Fairly happy with how it tastes. But yes, like you say the numbers seem...

I'm a bit confused. I racked my Cab Sauvignon today having completed MLF a week or so ago. The pH was at 3.8 and TA at 6.6g/L. I wanted to reduce the pH slightly to 3.6 so added tartaric. On paper I should have added at 2g/L, but decided to only add 1g/L to avoid overshooting (based on reading...

I'm in a similar position, chromatography shows no trace of malic when tested a week ago. Although the Shiraz still has some very occasional bubbles showing that MLF is still finishing off ( I presume). As others have suggested I plan to leave it a little longer until adding SO2 and racking. I...

So in the end as a medium term solution I decided to go for a dedicated wine cooler - that way I can hold the wine at 12C (your 54F) without having to mess about with heat mats and temperature controllers. It is big enough to hold my two vessels for aging this year and also have space for...

Really interesting thread there, I hadn't thought about using full size doors, that definitely makes best use of a small space. Similar size to what I'm thinking about too, although that will be a longer term solution for me. I'm thinking I will go for a double door bottle chiller as the short...

With my first batch of red wine just finishing up MLF I am belatedly thinking about how I am going to store my wine at a consistent, cool temperature for ageing - both for my mini-tanks/demi-johns and for when I eventual bottle. Unfortunately I don't have a cellar, instead I intend to use some...

No, the 1g/l and 2g/l were Malic acid solutions that came with the test kit - with the intention that you can compare these to your wine samples to get an idea of the concentration of malic left in your wine. Based on this, it would suggest there is no malic in my wine (or at least none that...

I tried my first chromatography testing of my wine to see how the MLF is progressing. Ideally I would have tested before starting MLF to have something to compare too but the test kit didn't arrive in time. The photo below shows the results, does this look like I have done it right? The two...

Nope, could not source French grapes over here in the UK. In fact there are very limited options entirely in terms of finding a company that imports grapes to the UK for home wine making. I only found one company, who imports Italian, Sicilian and Spanish grapes. They operate for one month a...

The liquid almost tastes like Grappa so pretty sure there's a fair bit of alcohol in it. It's fixed capacity, it's actually a beer fermenter but nothing special about it so can use it as a mini wine tank. It has a little tap at the bottom which comes in quite handy for taking samples and...

So a bit of a strange one...I just took the lid off my stainless steel mini tank to check on how MLF is going. Seems to be fine, strong blanket of CO2 on top of the wine. Anyway, I noticed there was a ton of condensation on the underside of the lid. Does anyone know if this condensation is...

Thanks, I will be in touch!

ok thanks for letting me know, we don't seem to have anything similar over here. Maybe I will try and build one :)