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I've recently reused the standard top on three bottles. One leaked, and wine went flat. Lucky it was a side product, poor quality Rose. So that experiment didn't work out too well. The Novatwist reused performed well. So far. We'll see how it works when reused for the third time.

Thanks John. Sounds good.

Excited about the next season as I found a Zinfandel grapes grower nearby. Already reserved 14 boxes (around 280 kilos). My favourite wine - happy , happy :) What's different this year is that the grapes will be ready 3 weeks before, and I'm planning to inoculate the MLF (VP41) with the yeast...

Cheers Sour_grapes, that sounds promising. Exactly what I wish to achieve. And thanks for the link. Will be an interesting reading :)

Hi everyone Can Enoferm Syrah be used for Zinfandel? I used it last year for Shiraz (crushed around 300kg), and it turned out pretty good. This is my second year of wine making and I have a glimmer of hope that I can get Zinfandel this year instead of Shiraz. Have nearly a kilo of Enoferm...

Re: Bottle swap Sure. Let's take this offline via messaging

Glad to hear your wine is developing nicely Slappy. You haven't made much this year, and also had some damage. Do you have enough? Are you going to make more this year around? Slappy seems to be making some serious quantities. The keg that had some tartaric added is a hit with my family...

Slappy, you wouldn't be in W. Australia? IF so - I can put you in touch with this small Shiraz grower.

So I bottled the second keg - the one with the Tartaric as described above. I find this wine slightly more "lively", although very similar to the first keg. It's somewhat more drinkable but I think some of the complexity tasted in the first keg may have been lost. The PH shows the same though...

This Novatwist seem to hold OK and I may reuse them once. I think the standard tin tops can be reused. Probably not more than once. This vax idea seems quite interesting. Well, if you don't have too many bottles :-)

Cheers Slappy. Good to hear. Some plastics seem to perform better :-) I'm planing to buy another variable capacity stainless steel tank for the next season. With this one, the top sits on the wine and slides down as you empty it. Paraffin oil around the edge keeps the air out. This way I...

Welcome mate. Making wine is more addictive than drinking it :-)

The Novatwist turned out fine. I used them on all kind of bottles except on two weird ones. Press down hard - twist to the right until locked. How well they keep the air out we'll know soon enough, however everything seems fine. At Au $0.36 per top - I'm planning to reuse them a few times :)

Hi Slappy, The Novatwist turned out fine. I could use them on all kind of bottles except on two weird ones. Press down hard - twist to the right until locked. How well they keep the air out we'll know soon enough, however everything seems fine. At Au $0.36 per top - I'm planning to reuse them...

Will work on that gradually. Unfortunatelly don't have small containers to work on the batches less than 50L. Previuously, I added some tartartic into one keg and the taste changed - got a bit like a white wine ting which I didn't like, but now after 3 months, that seemed to be nicely...

Ajmassa - re adding tartaric Will apply caution - thanks. Honestly I like the taste as is - that doesn't mean it won't be better with a bit more acidity. The only way to learn is to be (slightly) adventurous :-)

First I am not knowledgeable - only starting - but have learned heaps from various documentation I read and more so from this forum. MLF - As Meadmaker said - malo-lactic fermentation. The primary fermentation converts sugar to alcohol, the MLF is s secondary fermentation - converting an...

Thanks Ajmassa - what stopped me the first time was that the ph actually went up by 0.1 after adding tartaric. Having said that, it was in the middle of MLF. VCT was great for bulk fermentation, but eventually I raked the wine into three converted beer keg where the MLF completed. 30 Litres...

yes, yes... haven't explained well :-) I tried it in the distilled water as cmason advised, and it showed 6.6 - it was obviously out. Then I used the calibration crystals provided with the meter (they provided two, I used one to calibrate it originally). The calibration solution showed 0.4 out...

Checked the Ph meter in destilled water. Shows 6.9. With the 0.1 tolerance the meter appears reasonable now. It's a bit overwhelming to get into the chemical re-balancing of wine at this stage. It would require much more education. Given this year's experience - I'm likely to add tartaric...