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Is cleaning and kmeta 100% effective in killing organisms that cause cork taint? We got a bad batch of corks and have quite a few wines that were corked; can these bottles be re-used, or should we just toss them to be safe?

Has been mentioned already, but the best way is to do bench trials... get some cheap graduated cylinders and dial in what you like. This will be helpful in the future for many decisions with other wines. But this being a "concoction" wine (which I have made and enjoyed many), you might be...

I use the same philosophy as I would for a child... don't name them until you know them. :) The name of a wine (and the overall design as a whole) is used to identify it, just like you choose your clothes to identify yourself. A good place to start is deciding if you want your label to be about...

We made a shiraz/zinfandel kit, and force fed it up to about 19% alcohol. We then added cold pressed coffee and cocoa powder. After some rackings and back-sweetening, the resulting mocha port style is a HUGE hit.

Attended the WineMaker Magazine Conference last week, and had some amazing wines at the Friday night wine swap party. Thanks to Wes Hagen from J. Wilkes who brought (among 12 other amazing wines) a 1996 Caymus and a 1997 Opus One. Definitely the oldest wines I've tasted. He also brought a bottle...

Look to see if there are "alley" and "gutter" adjustments. I'm not familiar with the program, but looking at your prints it's obvious the label stock has separation and your prints are line to line. Alley is the space between the labels left to right, and gutter is the separation between the...

That's a really good idea. Even better might be the thin foil blankets, I think you can get them at sporting goods stores. I got one at the end of a marathon and was AMAZED at how much heat they keep in. Apparently they were designed for astronauts. The windshield screen may be the same stuff...

And as others have said, the kit is marketed as ready to drink in a few months, but you will be rewarded if you wait. The first kit is almost impossible not to drink (we've all been there), but since you have experience with beer making you might have a better shot. :h Until we built up a...

Have fun! And everyone's advice has been spot on. my 2 cents... How important is fermentation temp control? The cooler the temperature, the less aromatics get blown off and flavors are cleaner, resulting in better wine (especially in whites). The fermentation will take a little longer, but its...

Late to the game, but I just binged this very exciting and informative thread (and entertaining). Glad everything turned out, and like sour grapes said, good for you for not just dumping it. It's wonderful how you took the opportunity to make it a learning experience. And who knows, you might...

As others have said, the chips in the primary will provide a few different benefits (soften tannins, provide more complex flavors, etc) , but won't add much in oak flavor (if any). We've used the cubes with great success, and they're fairly inexpensive. What I really love about them is you can...

As others said, you should be fine. You might do more harm than good in trying to "fix" it by overcompensating. I can't imagine there will be any noticeable ill effect from that short a period of time. :)

Definitely too much head space. That's way too much surface area being exposed to air. You can get away with that while there's still active fermentation, but once there's no longer CO2 saturating the wine (protecting it) the headspace needs to be reduced to what the yellow one on the right is...

Sounds like your chewing everything just fine. You've certainly shortened your learning curve drastically. Good for you my friend!

Agree with Scooter68, always do both (although I didn't take DoctorCAD's phrase as direction, but as purpose). We clean and sanitize everything we use during the wine making, and then clean everything when we're done. So everything gets cleaned before we use it and after so it gets stored clean...

I don't think you need any pectinase before the fermentation. I don't know how much pectin is in grape concentrate, but even if there are significant amounts it will just cause cloudy wine. So you can add the pectinase later to clear. Pectinase is used with fruit to break down the pectin that...

Adding to what everyone else has expertly advised, the wine is ready to drink as soon as it is bottled. The difference is going to be how much you enjoy it. The lighter and fruitier and sweeter the wine, the more likely it will be OK to drink young and enjoy it. But EVERY wine goes through a...

This is very similar to how we value our wines. And I'm guessing the original post is looking at it more as a philosophical conversation to promote interesting discussion, and not necessarily to quantify a dollar amount (I may be wrong...that happens more often than I prefer). :h

We've accumulated quite a few wines over the years, so have a lot of choices. To us, the value of each bottle comes more into play in the beginning and middle of the batche's life-cycle. We try to consume them at their peak, but most of the time we notice a slight dip in quality in the last few...

Love those labels. Very clean and elegant. I got "Purple Rain" and "Sister Goldenhair", but what's the first one?