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Honey is fairly acidic, so 6 tsp. acid blend in 3 gallons sounds like too much. Most of the mead recipes that I find online do not include any acid blend. Have you measured the pH? If the pH is too low, it could be difficult to get the yeast started.

I have three rows of thornless blackberries. I can get all the starts I want. If you cut them and stick them in the ground, you need to water them consistently so that they will root. Good point about using a primocane.

@Ohio Bob The easiest way to propagate blackberries is to bury the end of a cane in the ground or in a pot and leave it for several months. As long as it is kept moist, it will grow roots from the tip of the can. Then you can cut the cane attached to the mother plant, and plant the new one where...

PA is only an estimate based on SG, which itself is only an approximation of the actual sugar content. There are a number of different formulas to estimate PA from initial SG. Go to FermCalc at https://fermcalc.com/FermCalcJS.html. Click on the Alcohol calculator. There are 9 different methods...

Fresh fruit may also have lacto bacteria, so you might be getting some lacto fermentation. When I bring fresh cucumbers in from the garden to make fermented pickles, the lacto bacteria are already present. I imagine that they are pretty much everywhere in the garden. Lacto fermentation can make...

That's exactly what I did this year setting up irrigation for our orchard and berries. 3/4" PVC for feed lines, and 0.5" tubing down the rows. Except in my case, I put the valves down near the orchard and berries. I wanted to install a spigot there anyway, so I ran a PVC source line and the...

To keep the carboy tilted, I use one of these:

I think that it is mainly UV that is the problem. Would the lights in a room harm wine if there was no sunlight reaching it? I would protect it from direct sun as well as reflected sun, just to be safe.

When I started, all my wine batches were 1 gal. What many of us do is start with a larger volume, to provide wine from the same batch for top up. The procedure is something like this: * Start with 1.5 gals in a 2 gal food grade bucket covered by a towel for primary. Plan your recipe and...

I use this one in my wine room: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PPQ9HDF/ It holds a lot of bottles without the need to stack. You need to bolt it to the wall for it to be stable. I have it bolted to studs in the wall.

I make hard cider, and also made a batch of apple wine. I find that it sometimes takes 3-4 months to clear. My suggestion would be to give it some time.

There is a great fruit flavor pairing chart here: https://thebakersalmanac.com/fruit-flavor-pairing-chart/ Not everything on the list is suitable for wine making, but this is a great source for ideas.

I have made Cherry wine, but not Hibiscus. As @Rice_Guy said, taste the ingredients. Make some Hibiscus tea and blend it with some cherry juice. Do you like the flavor? Cherry is a fairly strong flavor, so I'm not sure what Hibiscus would add. If you want to add flavor notes to your cherry...

I think that the answer depends on the type of fruit. I don't make grape wine, but with country wine I generally let the bag drip, then squeeze it hard. I don't think that I get any undesirable flavors from fruits like peaches and pears. But I could see that for some fruits, it might be better...

I found this today: https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/The-East-Bay-beer-that-s-45-million-years-old-9177673.php A 45 million year old yeast preserved in amber was revived and used to produce beer. This has been confirmed by two microbiologists, so it looks like the real thing. I checked: this...

I meant to say cyanide, not arsenic. As @Rice_Guy points out, arsenic comes from contamination in the soil I think that the problem with many of these warnings is that they don't pay attention to scale. If X has a small amount of a harmful chemical, they conclude that X is dangerous. But, (1)...

People have been fermenting pear and apples for millennia without a problem. There is a bit of an arsenic related compound in the seeds, but according to my understanding it is only released if you crush the seeds. I think that you would need to eat hundreds of seeds before it became a problem.

pH is logarithmic, not linear, so it is not easy to compute how much to add. That's the best way: add acid a little at a time and mix it thoroughly. Stop when you are getting close to the target pH. Then let it set overnight, stir and measure pH again. Sometimes it takes a little while to...

I found a good explanation of how to make chocolate extract: https://chemistrycachet.com/how-to-make-chocolate-extract/