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  1. tmcfadden932

    Cab Franc in Fairfax County, NOVA

    Try Stylet oil for mildew, it's just mineral oil just like the stuff you get at the pharmacy with a few added proprietary ingredients to justify the price. Mix 2oz per gallon of water. Yes, plain mineral oil will work too.
  2. tmcfadden932

    Site Selection and Winter Sun Exposure

    https://www.goodfruit.com/predicting-cold-hardiness-of-grapes/
  3. tmcfadden932

    Site Selection and Winter Sun Exposure

    Wisconsin and California are two different climate extremes. Where you live the cold that comes out of Canada can go well below 0 degrees F for days at a time. In the last 4 decades, I have experienced only one event here in California's Central Valley where it went below 20F for days at a...
  4. tmcfadden932

    YAN testing

    The best way is to use your nose. If you can smell hydrogen sulfide, rotten egg smell, then you haven't added enough. Some of the master wine makers, in and around Lodi, Ca. that I have talked to, recommend 225 to 250ppm in reds and about 2/3rds of that in whites with lower alcohol content.
  5. tmcfadden932

    Site Selection and Winter Sun Exposure

    Temps in the upper teens for a short period won't harm wine grapes.
  6. tmcfadden932

    Any hunters?

    Yearling groundhog makes good stew, after that not much. You can tell by the color of their fur.
  7. tmcfadden932

    What is the CORRECT way to displace ambient air from headspace ?

    A floating lid with an inert gas to top it off with. FlexTanks makes several sizes.
  8. tmcfadden932

    How to correct low pH and TA

    I make mostly grape wine in California. The wine makers club I belong to, LAVA, the Lodi Amateur Vintners Association, lavawine.org, which has monthly meetings where we have wine makers from a winery, where we hold our meetings that month, give a 1 to 2 hour seminar on any aspect of wine making...
  9. tmcfadden932

    How to correct low pH and TA

    White wines in the 3.25 to 3.45 range. Rose' 3.35 to 3.55, and reds about 3.6 pH. SO2 is added according to the pH, the lower the pH, less is needed. At 3.8 pH, to much is needed to stabilize the wine and if you have a good palate, you can start to taste it.
  10. tmcfadden932

    Confused

    Red wine is made on the skins and pressed after fermentation. Rose' is made with the juice from fresh red grapes, crushed and then pressed before fermentation. You don't get the dark color because of the limited skin contact. Rose' is made like a white wine, that is a cold fermentation around...
  11. tmcfadden932

    Confused

    DeltaPacking.com when in season, ships from Lodi, Ca. Don't know if they still have any this late in the season. Contact them.
  12. tmcfadden932

    Site Selection and Winter Sun Exposure

    East of the San Francisco Bay does not have a winter as you know it. Temps get down to around 32F and that's about it. Frost happens about once every 20 years, except on the mountains. I moved from Ohio to California 40 years ago and found what you learned as a grower there does not apply here...
  13. tmcfadden932

    Other Added Oak at Wrong Time

    Oak added during fermentation will help in color retention not much else. Get some more cubes or the like and add during the aging process. You can rack the wine off the oak when it gets to your liking.
  14. tmcfadden932

    Mexican v. Italian carboy

    The difference between the two is the annealing process. The old world glass makers do this, the Mexican do not and the carboys will break for no apparent reason. Annealing (glass) - Wikipedia
  15. tmcfadden932

    Site Selection and Winter Sun Exposure

    What makes you want to grow cool weather grapes in a hot environment that is only going to get hotter as the years go by? There are good grapes, both white and red, that will do well in the heat, Spanish and Italian varietals come to mind. I take care of a 1/3 acre vineyard in...
  16. tmcfadden932

    Post a photo, any photo

    An early eastern varietal Himrod, from upstate New York. Blooms early and bares fruit about the Forth of July here in the Central Valley of California. .
  17. tmcfadden932

    How to Avoid Sucking up Sediment

    It's a wand cap, closed on the bottom and open on the top.
  18. tmcfadden932

    Other Bucket size

    I ferment whites and rose' in the 47 to 52F range. I will start fermentation in the lower 60s to get thing going and then drop the temp to help capture those light weight components that hit you in the nose when you smell a wine that normally would be driven off when fermentation starts to heat...
  19. tmcfadden932

    What causes my wine to be bitter?

    PVPP will take out bitterness.
  20. tmcfadden932

    Little successes... H2S problems

    H2S is usually a problem with lack of Yeast Assimilable Nitrogen (YAN) in the must. If you start with YAN above 250 to 300ppm, you won't have the problem in the first place. I like to use FermAid-O nutrient to add YAN. There are others on the market that do the same thing.
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