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Good to hear your wine's moving along well. Perhaps a wine maker's primary interest in SG change is it's impact on alcohol content. A start of 1.110 fermented to 0.995 would have an alcohol percentage (ABV) of 15.63% while a start of 1.120 would yield 16.98%. I'm not familiar with Welch's...

Make that +2. I didn't want to get into the quality of what you were doing because you didn't ask, but it does seem a shame to start with Welch's Concord. Barrels do have a life and while I consider it longer than you may realize from DoctorCAD's comment, his and Noontime's point is spot on...

I hope this helps.

The typical process is for wine to be fermented in something like a large bucket that allows the wine's surface area maximum contact with air. Over time, oxygen becomes less and less important, eventually becoming detrimental to the wine. Before that happens, we move the wine into a secondary...

First, welcome to WMT. On your first question, I take it you have 2 bungs and 1 bunghole. I can't figure what the loose bung is for. I'd understand if it was too tight but not loose. (There's probably a reason, but I don't know what it could be unless they're allowing for the barrel to...

I'm interested to see some other thoughts, but I'd say you should be fine assuming there are no gross lees. If your batch contained a lot of fibrous stuff (like skins or oak), I'd suggest racking at this time. If not, you should be fine for another week. BTW, I assume your cover is tight and...

One last point. Use your mark I described in my previous post and the picture to check your initial measure because I'm not certain whether you under-filled the primary or the carboy is 6 gallons. When you figure out what you've done, put it all together with an additional post on your problem...

There's some precision needed in wine making and it's particularly true at the beginning of the process. It's more like baking a cake then grilling a burger. Put the primary on a level surface; check to make certain it's level. Using the largest container you have with an accurate...

In answer to your first question on topping up, you have a potentially fatal issue in that oxidation will begin when air (oxygen) comes in contact with the wine. It's not urgent in that the wine is protected as long as fermentation continues and CO2 is being produced. In fact you're best...

You seem to be a gallon or more short. What happened? I wonder if part of your problem is the amount of water you added.

The sort of back-handed good news is that you'll be fine if only making a wine worth $10 is your goal. You'll probably surpass that by a considerable margin. The fact is you've selected goods kits, they look good, and you're well focused. Those conditions should generally lead to outstanding...

Sammy, to play with the answer a bit, it's a matter of both degrees and degree. That is the actual temperature and length of exposure. Problems with wine are referred to as "wine faults" and among them is heat damage, often referred to as "cooked wine". Several things happen when wine is...

This is a topic that's discussed here regularly, and folks just do the best they can. I do think 77F is warm for wine and will mean your wine will peak before some others. That's not a big issue as long as you recognize it and not wait several years before you start tasting.

If I were you I'd consider getting a new primary fermenter at some point. Yes, you can certainly sanitize and proper sanitizing will generally kill most microbes. However, we clean before we sanitize because the sanitizer works best without dirt for the microbes to hide in. Those scratches...

Now you've got me worried. 77F will speed up the process, absolutely. However, there's a reason wine competitions aren't based on who gets his wine aged first. Quickly aged wine is just not as good as wine allowed to age at its own pace. Wine aging involves chemical reactions and...

Everything looks great. There's two aspects of making wine and, frankly, only one of them gets 90% of the attention: Picking a kit Making the wine You've got good wines on your list so you should be fine. Spend time making certain you're selecting top shelf kits and you'll be very happy...

Sammy, are you asking how long it takes wine to age? If I understand your question properly (and I suspect I may not), there is no specific answer. Wines take differing times to age and there is no specific schedule, that's part of the art aspect of wine making. For example, Cabernet...

rhattin, I agree with the essence of what you say, but not the specifics. By that I mean aging for 3 years probably did more harm than good, but that result would have been the same - probably worse - if you had bottle aged over that time. It's the overaging (I made that up.) of the wine that...

You should be fine on racking, although you should do so soon. I'm more concerned about the wood chips. I believe nearly 2 months is far longer than the chips should stay in the wine. (Of course I don't know the quantity of chips added.) The issue, I believe is more that the chips will start...

The carbonation was probably the result of re-fermentation. Just a guess, but I suspect the "carbonation" seeped from some of the bottles - those with imperfect corks. In other words, you probably had fermentation and "carbonation" in all the bottles equally but some was removed.