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Lol, well you could make one, and it would not HAVE to have a pump for it either. But, it sounds like your immersion chiller is working pretty well anyways to be honest.

Looks really cool! I would never think about buying a heat exchanger for brewing. So much funner and cheaper to make one yourself! I like how both your supply and return is the sink. Now if you were really wanting to get this going you could make a counter flow HX.

Generally you want to avoid splash racking since it can introduce too much oxygen and promote oxidation. Which is something that sticks out pretty strongly in a white styled wine. Same thing for stirring. I would go with your latter suggestion which would be to wait or add a fining agent...

Ferment or age? Most of the fermentation should be done within a couple of weeks. Generally, a good starting point for getting the wine clear would be to let the sediment drop out over time. For a white, cold stabilizing is typically a good idea since they tend to be served cold. Let it age...

Or it could possibly be some sort of yeast residue that got caught on the oak.. Does not look like an infection to me though.

I can't offer any advice. ... but I would be willing to "inspect" your harvest for mill worms when the harvest comes around.

Sounds like you got some good grapes. Did you happen to get the TA and PH while you were at it?

I would say combine the two different brands, I know Brehm is a good vendor, I don't know enough about the other to judge, but if those numbers are true ( not the whole story) they sound like they should blend pretty well. I would advise fermenting separately and combining later. Perhaps ferment...

I had the opportunity to try a merlot made from kit last summer. The wine was good, but it did have a some here in this thread have previously described as either bubble gum or kind of a strange strawberry like flavor to it. I have another bottle of it that has aged another year since then, ( I...

A small food grade pump should be sufficient. In order for it to work, the pressure head generated by the pump, must be equal or greater than the losses from the tubbing and the change elevation change. You might want to rig up a bypass in order to control the flow rate from the pump if it is a...

I am not an expert on wine making from grapes, but I would tend to lean towards blending after fermentation since it gives the winemaker more control over the flavor profile.

What I tend to do is to clean the bottles out really well to ensure their are no big bugs in the bottle. (usually rinsing a few times will accomplish this). Then I use either a no rinse or kmeta to ensure that their are no little bugs in my bottles.

Return on the Sid?

Congrats on the new hobby, it is pretty great. If you get tired of kits you could try other things with minimal equipment upgrades such as mead, or cider ( if you can get the juice freshly squeezed).

I always wanted to call fermentation more of the "itch" than anything else lol. Welcome to the club, though!

Nothing wrong with predicting your sugar additions so long as you verify after the fact. I have never made a Welch's wine, but I will chime in on the original question. If you add sugar you will primarily end up increasing ABV. If you add concentrate, you will increase ABV and everything...

That is quite a bit of wine, I guess it helps living on the left coast though. I will likely just stick to what I have aging right now since I could be moving cross country in a year, so I will need to have it all bottled prior to the move. Still, it should be a good year. Bottling 10...

I don't do kits, but you might try taking a good strong red kit ( perhaps one with grapes similar to that used in port) and dilute it down to around 30 brix and an acceptable PH.. and then ferment to around 12% and then fortify. You should still have residual sugar... Think like ice wine.

What says the primary won't float (; ? But if you are talking about a water safe aquarium heater it does not sound like a bad plan. The temperature of the insulation water will need to be less than 72 to account for the heat generation from the yeast. I would start at 70 and see where that gets...

Well, I look forward to you entering next year, they do a really good job of giving feedback. But, I understand the whole being your own harshest critic thing. Honestly, it is one of the reasons why I really like this competition.