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Never seen this chart before! Very useful! Ty.

You can use BBQ wood? It's food-grade? I hadn't thought of that, but I bet it's cheaper than my 5 oz bags of oak chips from the wine store.

I was just tasting out in Carmel Valley - one of the wineries had 'lost' three barrels of Cabernet for 5 years!!! It hadn't turned to vinegar, something happened and it created a vacuum inside the barrels. They bottled it and were selling it as something of a 'bespoke' wine, one-off, that will...

My Rose addition was amazing! I think you're on track with that train o' thought.

So envious of that sink...

Oooh! Strawberry season has finally arrived. I'm inspired, JohnD. Isn't the must the most divine strawberry smell ever??? I just bottled last year's and it is one of the better I've made - certainly the best fruit wine. I'm going to the farmer's market to get some more berries tomorrow. Need to...

One cork out of 20 years doesn't seem like terrible odds if you like your corks as-is.

I love the idea of starting lots of kits at once! You have a busy day or two, yes, but everything's condensed. I know that I need to start a few new kits if I want to keep my production line going, but I have a hard time getting around to it when I consider I have 25 gl in various stages of...

I didn't know that about malic acid and apples, sour grapes - interesting. I had 3 gl each of apple juice concentrate and then one of crab apples. Needed my 3 gl carboys and wasn't thrilled with either, so threw them together into the 6 gl with the oak chips. Now it's the waiting game. Will...

Okay - I have a batch of low alcohol apple wine - ~9%. It's in need of something extra. I just racked and added K-meta, oak chips, and bentonite hoping to impart flavor and scrub it a little. It's 3 mos old at this point. Too late to try MLF?

Thanks! No rhubarb, alas. I have some strawberry (which smells like strawberry, but is really dry), peach, apple, and the rest is vinis vinifera. Will check out his post.

Okay, so I'm in the middle of an experiment. Making 5 gl. of ginger wine. Super gingergy. Here's the original recipe: 6 oz. ginger root, chopped 3 cups mixed raisins, chopped 2 lemons, zested and juiced 10 lbs sugar, dissolved in water 5.3 gallons water 5 tsp. yeast nutrient 1 tsp. pectic...

Interesting link. I have celiac. It's one of the reasons I've gotten into wine. I've never heard of fining with gluten - and my other hobby is antique cookbooks, so I've read a ton of off-the-wall winemaking recipes. Does anyone do this? It just seems like there are better alternatives. Also...

So now that I have a production line going, I'm letting them sit and wait. I have a couple of 8-week kits that were technically ready to bottle several months ago. I figure as long as I have carboys, space, and bottled wine on the rack, why fine? But, I must say I look at those full carboys...

I'm in the same boat. No more room if I want to make sure I carboys open for fall. Maybe a couple of 1 gl. frozen fruit wines.

Maybe call your local university extension. They should have data/recommendations for the different varieties, especially the Frontenac which is a cold-hearty varietal. Maybe even call up the Minnesota Univ. extension, IL might not have the expertise.

I'm in the exact same spot. To answer your first question: I did 200 lbs by hand last year using the milk crate method - only I used a cross-hatch wire cooling rack from the kitchen because the merlot grapes were pretty tiny. The process took me 3 hours. Any longer and I think I would have...

Spent the day cleaning out the garage whose sole attribute is four walls and a roof that lets in daylight. Never seen so many spiders. Would like to set up a primary fermentation and winemaking equipment storage area. Discovered mold beginning to form on some of my picking buckets, really...

Hmm... would like to see some error bars here... Maybe we're not so bad? I actually think it's about right for me if it's based off of commercial wine consumption. Why buy when you can make?

I didn't know that. Interesting. ...