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What are you fermenting in? And I'm assuming you're making a red? I would think it would be easier to just de-stem directly into your fermenter so that you don't have to keep emptying that little tray into your fermenter. This can be tricky, though, if you're fermenting in something small (like...

Ha well that's a good sign! That's a good question and the answer lies in how my measurements are taken. Bathroom scales are quite inaccurate and to add to it I don't have a great way of taking measurements of volume in that scale. I also round up or down a fair amount when I write on here...

Thank you, I'm pretty excited to make this stuff because it's so good as fruit and I really love Rhone reds. I agree, it's really nice that my dad has his own vineyard and that he's interested in helping me learn about this stuff. He also really does know what he's doing so it's very high...

Picked Grenache early Saturday morning. Had planned on having it de-stemmed early that afternoon but that didn't happen. Threw some KMBS, oak chips, and dry ice in there Saturday afternoon and will be inoculating with RP15 tomorrow afternoon. I'm thinking I will do much more de-stemming by...

Went ahead and did the first racking today, as I feel that fermentation is very close to being done. Temperature is down to 70.5* F and with correction, Specific Gravity is 0.9956 or about -1.15* Brix. I was starting to pick up on a bit of a reductive quality in the aromas of the wine so I...

Does that seem like too little to you? I was advised to go with 35ppm by a very experienced commercial winemaker so that's what I went with. I do believe that natural yeast metabolized about 1* Brix worth of sugar at the very beginning, but it tastes and smells really really good so I'm...

This morning's punchdown found that we're down to -0.5 Brix, and temperatures are slowly declining. Taste-wise the wine has suddenly become quite noticeably tannic, but I think the tannin will become less harsh as the wine ages in barrel a bit, not to mention gets racked off the gross lees...

I'm not worried about it, I'm impressed by it! I'm really looking forward to seeing how it looks after the first racking, I think that will be really telling. I'd say so, I'm down to about 2 Brix today, so getting down there. What kind of temperatures do you consider hot, and what kind of...

These yeast are going nuts, it's been 3 days and already the hydrometer is showing 1.021 Sp. Gra. or about 5.5* Brix. I'm assuming that they're going to slow down in the next day or so (otherwise the Syrah would end up being dry the day after tomorrow) but they haven't shown any signs of...

Thank you! That sounds like fun, I bet it will be great. Going into making this wine I was anticipating low fermentation temps and a slow fermentation with minimal extraction as a result. Temps have been sitting around 80 F and I'm already down to 17.5 Brix (1.072 Sp. Gr), was at 22...

These are most likely being sold as planters not for using to make wine. Pop a bung and shine a flashlight in there, I bet that there's some white mold or bacterial colonies growing in there. Unless they have SO2 in them, which I would be surprised by, smell the inside of the barrel and see if...

Took these pictures two hours after pitching the yeast, they are very happy. It was really hot today so they had a head start, but they seem to be thriving. Hopefully it stays that way! I'm really impressed with the smell of this must, I'm thinking this is shaping up to be a great wine.

I think some more info is needed here but you can always stunt their growth with cold temperatures and/or SO2. Dry ice is the "best" thing to use to chill down the wine/juice/fruit but you could get creative with other methods of chilling. I'm assuming you're planning on using SO2 in some form...

I can't say I've tried any of these wines except I may have tried a Phelps at one point, can't seem to remember. Well as long as you keep an eye on it, and try to notice any faults before they take off I wouldn't be too worried! Today was a busy day with the wine, got the measurements for...

Awesome, sometimes I'm pretty unsure of how to explain things ha. What wineries did you go to, and what were your favorites? That's great, that sounds like fun! I haven't had too many Petite Sirah's but I love Zin. Did you start a topic for your wine? I don't have numbers yet. Preliminary...

I will! There isn't anything for me to update with right now as it's just cold soaking currently so there really isn't anything happening but soon enough I will inoculate and then it will start getting interesting. I'm really excited to see how it shapes up as fermentation starts going. I'm a...

Thank you! I haven't quite decided why I'm doing a whole cluster ferment and I would have preferred the rachis to be a little bit more lignified (brown/woody) but I think it will be OK. I'll be sure to update as fermentation goes on. There is no such thing as a dumb question! Basically I put...

Syrah and Grenache from Carneros So this morning I picked about 140lbs of Syrah from Carneros to make my first wine. While this is my first wine, I am currently going to school for enology and have worked harvest in a cellar before. I also grew up around winemaking but this will be the first...