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It's no surprise that the taste is poor. Over the past thousand years or so mankind has determined which grapes work best for wine and they ain't table grapes. Colour, flavour intensity from table grape skins is another issue. On advice from this forum, I've experimented with enhancing the...

Thanks to Salcoco for such an obvious solution that never percolated in my brain. This forum proves its value yet again.

I have a friend who is fond of rosés but I'm loath to buy a whole kit just to have a bottle or three available for my friend. I've read that a blush can be made from any red wine variety as long as the grape skins are removed from the must early on. I'm guessing that red wine grapes are used...

Your sourdough bread looks great. I've had great success with sourdough but never thought about using homebrew as liquid. Interesting! Question: Never had good success making French bread, especially a true Parisian baguette. Can you point me to a good recipe or share yours?

Occasionally Costco puts its Argentia Ridge wines on sale. I bought a double (60-bottle) kit of Chardonnay and another of Merlot in-store for $64 CND each. That's about 50 US bucks for a 60-bottle kit. I've been making the Argentia Ridge wines for some time. The initial 6-gallon batches I made...

Has anyone tried putting in new corks to top up a carboy?

Rather than the same old wine labels, I created a series of mystery wine labels. Even people who are reluctant to try homemade wine are quick to join in the fun to guess the wine variety by taste and clues on the label. Can you guess the wine type of the five bottles on the left by the visual...

I was fortunate to have an experienced home winemaker to mentor me and lend me some equipment for my first batch. Thereafter I bought most of my equipment used via Kijiji. I bought my first five carboys, bungs, and various tubing from a person who stopped making wine. Facebook has 'Buy Nothing'...

I'm about to try to make wine from fresh juice for the first time after making a dozen wine kits. My understanding is that the fresh juice naturally contains all the yeast that's needed. It speaks to the quote by Martin Luther: 'Beer is made by men, wine by God.' Left on its own, grapes and...

So using black table grape skins to a cab sauv will add to the depth but won't make the wine taste fruity or grapey?

I can lay my hands on a couple of the RQ 2020 kits. Is there any problem (deterioration) because the kits were issued a year ago? The one I can get readily is the RQ 4 - Australian Pinot Noir Shiraz. I'm a fan of pino noir but not overly fussy about shiraz, especially Australian shiraz. Anyone...

I'm adding an addendum — caution — to my post above. Yesterday, I reracked a carboy of Nebbiolo after three months of bulk aging only to be surprised when the bung shot out with a pop. I thought I had degassed the wine thoroughly and even reracked it in the carboy for 30 days with an airlock to...

After much disappointment and expense trying to print my own labels I discovered sticky photo paper that can produce professional quality wine labels at a great price. I can design 6-8 outstanding labels per sheet using only MS Word. There are 100 sheets in a package for $25.99 CND or $21.99...

Yikes! Have I been doing this wrong? I've always rinsed the bottles with bottle washer AFTER sanitizing. What I see here is that the sulphite should be the last thing to touch the inside of bottles before placing on drying tree.

Any opinion yet how they stack up with the top RJS and WineXpert kits?

Has anyone been able to get to the stage where they can compared the RQ big reds to similar wines in the En Primeur series?

I use three plastic zip ties. One goes around the lip to hold the other two that criss cross on top to keep the bung firmly in place. You can get about 20 of them for $2 at the Dollar store. It also serves as a deterrent for wine thieves. The level drops when you rerack.

If I add K-Meta to bulk aged carboy, should I put in more K-meta before bottling 4 months later?

Why do you need K-Meta for wine racked in bulk but not when it's bottled. If the air gap is kept close to the stopper, what's the difference?

It's about as good an answer as I've heard anywhere. I read one news report about a California grower who said vines to replace those lost in the wildfires would take a generation to mature. Interesting side note: Napa Valley’s Hoopes Vineyard couldn't use smoke-tainted grapes for wine but...