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The answer depends on the ambient temp, but for the most part, it will take overnight. H

I busted out my soil test from 2013, the fall before I planted my small vineyard. My results were analyzed by the viticulture department at Iowa State. They classified each sample and gave me a fertilization recommendation. My lab results are in ppm instead of lbs/acre. The conversion is ppm =...

Final parameters Harvest date : 9/12/18 Harvest GDD : 3127 Harvest Sample: 23.5 brix, 3.3 pH Must sample before fermentation : 23.2 brix (hydrometer), 3.35 pH Could have waited a bit for little better harvest params, but I was seeing a lot of bug damage, particularly sap beetles (aka picnic...

I did some research on this a couple years ago, and reached the same conclusion as GaDawg. Screw top bottles are not engineered to handle the stress of a cork. H

During primary, expect about twice the height of foam you get with most Ales, or about the same as a Hefe. There are anti-foam agents you can buy, but I have never tried them. H

Much of it will come in handy. Invest in some 7.9 gallon white plastic buckets for fermenting reds. Makes punching the cap down easy. I ferment white juice in 5 or 6 gallons buckets. Fermonsters and carboys work too if you leave enough headspace for the foam. Most red wines benefit from a...

A pinot noir, shiraz, malbec or zinfandel would give you a nice contrast to the cab. Might come in handy if you have company over and they don't like big, bold cabs. At some point, you should consider doing a cab franc. Fantastic grape that doesn't get as much shelve space as his son. H

If they are wine grapes, consider combing them and making a rose. H

First picture looks like potassium deficiency to me, which can be brought on by periods of heavy rain. H

I have been utilizing these with some success liquid sevin (zeta-cypermethrin) fly stick traps baited with some split grapes placed some high acid Frontenac clusters on the far end o the property to lure the neighbor's to those instead of my remaining crop crushing every wasp I can catch while...

Well, we have finally emerged on the back side of an incredibly slow moving, rain laden, stationary front. The last 3 days have been sunny and the rest of the week looks sunny and hot. Sampled yesterday and had brix at 23.8 and pH at 3.23. I think I am going to pluck them tomorrow or Wed...

Boy, does this sound familiar. Have you measured pH or TA? H

From the manufacturer You also have sanitation issues to think about. Are you trying to save money, or go for some unique flavor profile? Your idea might work out, but if saving money is the primary motivator, I would personally focus elsewhere. A single $9 winestix works out to about 36...

I get mine from https://www.pioneer.com/home/site/us/tools-apps/growing-tools/gdu/ . I like that tool because it gives me an easy comparison with last year. I choose Mar 1 as the start date. The GDD equation for a single day is (Tmax + Tmin) / 2 - Tbase where Tbase is crop specific, Tmin is the...

Thanks for the offer. I might take you up on that we get cooler weather. I freeze all my white juice and thaw it when I can ferment it at the temp I want (usually after Halloween). H

Yeasts like 71B can metabolize malic acid into ethanol (more so than typical yeast strains anyway). The process is known as maloalcoholic fermentation. I have also seen it referred to as "malo-ethanolic deacidification". I don't know what intermediate compounds are involved, but both malic acid...

Ultimately, I did decide to let them hang. I can't say that it was brix * ph^2 that convinced me. It was more a culmination of these factors * Petite Pearl is supposed to be my late season, low acid grape, vinifera like grape. * Skins are supposed to be tough and not prone to splitting * I was...

This would have been the game plan if I had harvested. One piece of information I am still trying to find is how much those yeasts contribute to the ABV when they metabolize the malic acid. That metabolism is worth some equivalent sugar addition to a non metabolizing yeast strain. How many brix...

Hey, we have the same crusher, although my crank operator doesn't always show up for work. Do you find that you have to pick out a lot of stems as the must slides down the hopper? Some varieties eject the stems cleanly out the end, but several produce a lot of small chunks that make it through...

This is an important detail I overlooked New liquid forms of Sevin in red bottles == zeta-cypermethrin : pre-harvest interval of only 1 day for grapes Powder and granule forms of Sevin == carbaryl phi of 7 days for grapes Sevin SL liquid concentrate == carbaryl Old jug of liquid Sevin sitting...