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This has been sitting in my basement for the last several months bulk aging. SInce you asked, I just took a little taste. FInal ABV was 15% (higher than I wanted), and the current SG is 1.014. Taste is still pretty hot, and I don’t get a lot of the cherry flavor yet. I think I plan on...

SO I started a 1 gallon mead recipe and will start a 1 gallon wine once I get this first batch into secondary. The mead I did 4.5 lbs/gallon and added half a banana for mouth feel. I think I'll do 5 pounds in the wine.

Just parking my details here for future reference. Picked up 10 or so pounds of blackberries from a road-side stand over the weekend, and am making both a mead and a wine (both one gallon batches). Blackberry Mead (1 gallon) 4.5 lbs blackberries 1.5 lbs Mesquite honey (so far) 7 pints water...

1. Welcome to the forums! 2. I'm fixing to start my second batch of blackberry wine, but I only have 10 lbs of fruit. I won't have to worry about it overflowing! My first batch of blackberry wine was a blackberry port. I only kept the fruit in for two days, since it fermented very quickly...

I only have one 5 gallon carboy, so I rack into a bucket, clean the carboy, and then transfer it back. SO you could do another one!

The last several meads I made I should have gone lower for the ABV and then back-sweetened. The yeast was more active than expected, so it's not as sweet and higher alcohol than planned. I do think I'm going to go a little lower ABV (11% I think) for this and then back sweeten. I don't...

Good morning. A quick question for the brain trust. I just picked up some wonderful looking/tasting blackberries this weekend from a local-ish farm stand. (It was on HWY 17 driving from Virginia Beach to the DC area.) I plan on making something with it, and the question is this: Should I use...

Jack Keller's recipes also use only 2 lbs of blueberries per gallon. Just yesterday I opened a bottle of the Full Bodied Semi Sec version (2 lbs blueberries, add 1 cup of Red Grape Concentrate prior to bottling). I'm not sure that doubling the blueberries per gallon would have made it that...

This was for a three gallon batch. Bumble Bee Berry Blast 12 lbs honey Trader Joe's wildflower and clover honey water to 3 gallons 9 lbs frozen triple berry mix (raspberry, blackberry, blueberry) 1 lb frozen strawberries Yeast: 71B-1122 I did staggered additions for the yeast...

I have used oak chips from LD Carlson. Soak for an hour and then drop in. I’ve just soaked in water, and so far I haven’t noticed any funk coming from the carboys. I think I’d rather use spirals, but I haven’t gotten around to ordering any yet.

Just a little update. Had my first real glass of the Chilean Pinot Grigio this past weekend. I had several family members try a glass, and they all liked it. I didn’t take it completely dry, so there is just a little residual sweetness. ( took it to 1.001 according to my notes). It has a...

I made my first wine about 10 months ago, and made a bunch initially (probably 2-3 a month) as I was so excited to be into this hobby. I’ve since slowed way down on the frequency of starting new batches. But having a lot made early on means I have several that have now aged for 6+ months and I...

I hate to rain on your parade, but just be warned that making wine from store-bought fresh fruit might not give you an awesome wine. They are normally picked too young, and don't have all the flavor you'd see from getting fresh-picked fruit that is fully ripe when they pick it. When I buy...

Welcome to the forum! I'm mostly a gallon at a time wine-maker, with very few larger batches. Easy to experiment with that size. Main thing you need is patience. I am now finding that easier to get now that I have 15 batches under my belt. But I'm still wanting to drink my wine before...

Trader Joe's sells 100% Cranberry juice with no preservatives. (And no added sugar. I tried drinking it straight, and it isn't pleasant at all on its own!) I've used it to top-off my cranberry and cran-apple wines before. It's not a concentrate, but it is potent.

Well my day is officially shot. I was on the red-eye from Seattle to DC, and due to weather missed my connection at 7 AM this morning. My confirmed seat now gets me home at 4:55 PM! There are a few stand-by options that might get me home sooner, but this is a day that requires drinking . . .

I love homemade strawberry jam. The recipe (if I remember right) is 5 cups of strawberry puree to 7 cups of sugar. With a ratio like that, it's hard to go wrong!

You shouldn't need the campden tablets up front if you are starting with sterile juice. The tablets are important if you start with any fruit or non-sterile juice (I.e. Juice you need to keep in the refrigerator). For the bottle you have you should be fine to add the yeast and let it go! You...

Reasonable question. I have a 3 piece airlock on both carboys. I have plastic carboys, and I pushed down on the top then let go. It draws the water up the cap, and it hasn't moved. so there's been no CO2 produced to push the water out of the cap piece. The other one is bubbling away. Can...

I bought a 6 gallon South African juice bucket this year, and split it into two buckets. One bucket had a lug of grapes added, and the other didn't. I used the same yeast on both, Let them both go to dry and moved to secondary. I split a packet of MLF bacteria between the two. That was about...