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How can I tell if there’s a dusting without racking? When I see a totally clear wine and rack it, there’s purple stuff left on the bottom. I was guessing that the only way to know it’s totally clear is to rack it and find a clean bottom. Haven’t done that yet.

I’m actually building a storage rack for a modest ~200 bottles. It’s actually two ~100 bottle towers joined. These towers use 60* triangles rather than diamonds. I’ll get some pictures up as I go. I weighed a few store bought bottle and some are as heavy as 7lbs! That would put the weight...

These kits that are ready to be enjoyed younger... Are they really good at a young age? Or are they simply not going to improve with more age? Let me try to quantify by question. Imagine a premium kit rates an 8 out of 10 at two years, but only rates a 4 or 5 at six months. Does a lower end kit...

My research led me to believe it was not fermentable. I can let you know in a month or four. I added some (1oz per gallon) to a wine kit that was 4 months old. It has been sitting in a carboy for 2 months since. No signs of fermentation. No sorbate. Sulfite, yes.

New guy here (<=== disclaimer). I interpreted the kit instructions a bit differently than your execution. I basically read, add water until the 6 gallon mark, then add the skin packs. Each skin pack displaces about a quart of volume, so I’d say you’re a half gallon short on water. Perhaps...

I had similar experiences with EM and without EM. I would venture to say that having the skin/seeds/stems in also provide more nucleation sites facilitating the CO2 to fall out of suspension. Time would obviously play a role as well. Definitely less degassing required after an 8 week EM vs a 2...

I made some not long ago and it’s so blue, it’s almost black. 4lbs of frozen blueberries for 1 gallon of wine racked into secondary.

A fine tip I picked up reading a lot is to spin the carboy back and forth without lifting it. This not only releases the sediment from the sides of the carboy, but slides the sediment at the bottom of the carboy down away from the walls and punt. Works really well, you just need to leave some...

The D80 batch only measured as high as 1.094. I guess there is some variance from kit to kit. The D80 definitely got off to a slower start, but got caught up pretty quickly. D80 took 1 more day to hit the 1/3 sugar break than the D254, but came in just a few hours behind on hitting the 2/3...

Place the probe cable up, so it stands on the cap. Hold the cap like a bottle. Spin the blue ring as if it was the bottle cap; lefty loosely, righty tighty.

Maybe obvious and doesn’t need to be said but, you need to loosen the blue ring to loosen the grip it has on the probe. Once you’ve got the probe back in (goes in easily), you tighten it to keep it from leaking. It’s a great cap. Keeps the probe wet and uses very little solution.

I have been shopping around for a good price on a moderate number of punted bottles. Found the best deal with a sale and figured I would share. Midwest Supplies has these bottles for $19.99 a case: https://www.midwestsupplies.com/750-ml-green-punted-bordeaux-bottles Free shipping over $125 and...

Friday night, I racked the D254 batch to a 6 gallon carboy after squeezing the bag of skins pretty well. Added sulfites and degassed a good bit (5 minutes at -25"Hg). I still needed to top up the carboy with 1.75 bottles of wine; that's like 3 pints. No oak cubes, yet. I added the clearing...

What temperature? I would think the sausage would be better than the wine. All of it is a gamble and risk taken by you alone. Maybe pasteurize the wine and use for cooking?

That would be 6 volumes of CO2, not 6 bars. 6 bars is about 90 psi. 6 volumes of CO2 at 75*F is also about 90 psi. As the temperature increases, so does the pressure. CO2 dissolves better at lower temps, so less pressure is required. At 32*F, 6 volumes is down to about 40 psi. Most beer is...

That’s good news. I was hoping this was an annual event. I’ll keep and eye on the forum come February and March. Any better way to stay informed?

That makes sense. I was only looking at the pH in order to determine the amount off sulfite to add. Based on advice I’ve received here in other threads, I added enough this time to achieve 120ppm. My pH measurement was to calculate the amount of sulfite for maintenance doses (every 3 months)...

I racked the wine today, stable at 0.990 SG. That points right at 13% ABV. I measured a pH of 3.05. That is down further from the 3.33 pH I measured before fermentation. I have read that pH normally increases with fermentation. Is this normal? Or is one of my readings off? Perhaps the pH had...

I do this myself and have found no need to warm the mixture. I use a couple of half-gallon jars to split the pack into, top up with spring water. I give it a shake and set them in the fridge for a few days. A shake a day keeps the guesswork at bay!

Keller’s recipes are in the 3 - 4 lbs per gallon range and call for acid as well. https://winemaking.jackkeller.net/request227.asp To a novice like me, it would seem that adding more fruit would produce a better wine. I think I would strive for adding enough fruit until no acid is needed, but...