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I agreee with the previous posts. You want as little air space hitting the wine once fermentation is complete. A day or so may not harm the wine but I would transfer it to a 3 gal carboy.

I have to disagree on this one. If you have rotten egg smell you need to correct it soon otherwise it will be very hard to correct later. This is a common problem if the yeast doesn't have enough nutrients or of the grower over sprayed the grapes. The best thing to do is aerate the wine by...

I don't think you put the air lock on too early. The air lock is designed to let the co2 gas out while keeping oxygen out. Many wine makers when fermenting juice in pails put an air lock on through the lid during fermentation. I prefer to keep a loose lid on without an air lock. Oxygen...

Here is my suggestion. Visit Jack Keller's website and search for watermelon wine. Watermelon wine is difficult to make because it spoils very fast. I have not made watermelon wine but have red that it can begin to spoil and turn brown within a day. Jack recently posted on another forum that...

I haven't made kit wines before, just wine from juice or fresh fruit and grapes. However, tonight I will be starting my first kit, a WE Chocolate Raspberry Port. If you do not have a large enough fermenting vessel I would split the kit in half, as close as you can, and use the 2 vessels you...

Covering your fermentation vessels is a good idea. It helps to keep out unwanted fruit flies and other debris from possible getting into the wine. Sulfite from last year should be fine, I would not recommend taking a strong whif of the powder. If you stored the sulfite in a sealed container...

If you have very little happening in the carboy with the fermentation, ie., you are not seeing very many bubbles, then I would top off the wine now. The only reason not to top off when the wine is still fermenting somewhat vigorously in a carboy is that you don't want the wine to back up into...

I haven't used wine smoothers. I just don't see a need for them and prefer to let my wine age before drinking them. Sorry I can't be of help on this one.

You have me stumped on the rye wine. I even looked at Jack Keller's website and could not find a recipe for it. Jack's website is www.jackkeller.net and he has an extensive listing of wine recipies but I didn't see this one.

If you are not sure about the acidity of the wine I would hold off until it is completed. If it tastes a little flabby or flat then acid is needed. I have never made a pomagranate wine so I don't know which type of acid to add if needed.

I use One-Step or B-Brite for cleaning and Potassium Metabisulfite for sanitizing.

I have to agree. Even at 55 degrees you can develop mold on the must. Bring the must temp up to at least mid 60's and add the yeast. If you are able to, you can store the must in a cold refrigerator, like 40 degrees F for a few days but 55 degrees is too warm to prevent mold and bacteria.

From what I have read, most kits get better with age. They don't taste so great early on but after 9 months or so the flavor really developes. Give it some time.

Jay, you can use a portable refractometer to measure brix or specific gravity of the must but only before primary fermentation. Once fermentation begins and the sugar begins its conversion to alcohol a refractometer will not give you an accurate or even close measurement.

I haven't made kit wines but at 1.000 SG it should be pretty dry. At 1.000 SG all of the sugar has been converted to alcohol. The SG can still decrease a few more degrees to something like 0.996 which would be bone dry. Are you sure you are tasting sweetness? Sweet is a taste sensation...

Are you making mead or cider? Because if you are saying your starting SG was 1.056 you would only end up with around 7.5% alcohol, not enough for wine. I don't think I can help you with the attenuation as I don't quite understand the relationship either. Edit to post: The only further...

I wanted to use D21 for my cab sauv but could not find it in small quantities. Here is the decription from Scott Lab: Isolated from one of the best Languedoc “terroirs” during a special regional program run by the InstitutCoopératif du Vin’s (ICV) Natural Micro-Flora Observatoryand...

I have not heard of attenuation so I did a quick google search as I was curious. Here is the definition I found: Attenuation: Attenuation is the percentage of sugars that the yeast consume during fermentation. If the fermentation went to 1.000 gravity, that would be 100% attenuation...

I replied to this post last night but for some reason it isn't showing up. Any way, in the past, and even today, some winemakers prefer to let the natural "wild" yeast in the grapes ferment the juice into wine without the addition of commercial yeast. The process is very simple but can lead to...

Sure, you can make wine by pressing grapes and letting the natural yeast do its thing but you can run into several problems one of which is that the yeast isn't strong enough to finish the job thereby leading to a stuck fermentation whereby you end up with a very sweet wine, especially if you...