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Based on the recommendations of many here, I decided to try #9 nomacorks. I have a double lever hand corker. I pushed 3x harder than I do for #8 natural corks, but could only get the cork about 1/3 of the way into the bottle. Getting it back out was a challenge. The inside diameter of bottle...

Honey is acidic. Many mead recipes include calcium carbonate to raise the pH. So I suggest that you put together the must for your mead and check the pH before you add acid. You probably won't need it. Accomplished mead maker Bray Denard generally includes K2CO3 in his recipes to raise pH...

@Smoke In other words, LHBS is not the name of a company. It is the generic name we give to any local home brew shop. When I first joined WMT it took me a little while to figure that out.

The gas released by Kmeta will condense to form an acid. It will corrode any metal to which it is exposed, including stainless steel. I learned the hard way when I had some Kmeta solution stored in a jar with a canning lid. Before long, the inside of the lid was corroded. I store my extra...

I use honey to backsweeten my mead. Once it is stabilized and the honey added, I let it bulk age for another month or two until it clears again.

The amount of sugar you add depends on how long you want to keep it going. If you want to leave it overnight you need a lot more sugar. But you need nutrients as well. If the yeast run out of sugar they will go dormant again. But if the yeast run out of nutrients, they will produce off flavors...

If you want the sugar in a liquid form, try simple syrup. Mix a 2:1 ratio by volume of sugar:water, then simmer until the sugar is completely dissolved (it will go from cloudy to clear). It will be quite thick, so you won't be adding much water with your sugar. Once it is cooled, I use a...

I have found that the yeast wakes up much faster if you keep the starter at the temperature recommended by the manufacturer for the first hour or so. It is usually something like 95-97 degrees F. I get my starter water + GoFerm to that temp, then place it in a warm water bath to keep it warm for...

When I have used online calculators to determine how much sugar to add to attain my desired OG, the actual measured OG is often different from what I expect. I assumed that this would be a simple calculation, but apparently that is not so. For my current hard lemonade, I was aiming for an OG of...

pH is a logarithmic scale, so I'm not sure that you can calculate it like that. @Rice_Guy might be able to shed some light on that.

I simmer mine as well. I read somewhere that simmering it will destroy the anti-microbial properties. I haven't been able to verify that from a reputable source, so I'm not sure whether that is true or not. For my hard lemonade, I used only the "tea" from simmering and steeping the ginger. I...

As @Jusatele said, take it to whatever level you want. Some enjoy doing all the chemistry in search of the perfect wine. Others like to use mainly their own five senses. Most of us are somewhere in between the two extremes. At least a little understanding of the chemistry and biology behind...

I have found that it sometimes takes a while for the acid to fully integrate into the must, so I usually stir it well, wait several hours or overnight, stir well again, and then take another pH reading.

That's what I will try next time, if I have trouble getting this to ferment.

Yes it does. I discovered that when making hard ginger ale. I eventually got it to ferment, but it was a struggle. This time I am using only a small amount of ginger, and step feeding my starter with must to help the yeast acclimate to the adverse environment. If I have trouble with that, next...

I have lemon balm coming up right now all over my property, so it was time to taste the wine that I made from it last year. Last year's batch was started on 4/8/23 and bottled on 1/21/24 (I got busy...). Today it has a good but subtle flavor. It is like a white wine with a hint of lemon and...

Next time I suggest increasing the amount of fruit. For most fruits, I use at least 5 lbs. of fruit for each gallon of the batch size. Too little fruit results in a watery wine. I ferment most of my wine around 65 degrees F. Lower temperatures result in a slower ferment, which usually produces...

I use a bucket covered with a dish towel, tied on with a string. That will keep out any bugs that make their way into my wine room.

The short answer is Yes. I regularly bottle some of my wine in 375 ml bottles for sampling. With natural corks, smaller bottles have the same amount of oxygen ingress as larger ones, but with a smaller volume of wine. Exposure to tiny amounts of oxygen is only one component of the complex...