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Your existing vacuum pump is probably far too powerful. The little aquarium pumps only run about 1 psi, where the vaccum pump draws about 14 psi of vacuum. A small aquarium pump is only about $10.

Not familiar with this test procedure. What are the details?

A freezer is not a good idea. Precipitating wine diamonds takes time, and in a freezer the wine will likely freeze before the precipitation is complete. Normal procedure is to hold the wine at about 35F for a couple of weeks.

A floor corker for $3099? They are proud of their equipment!

I would use it. Make up a gallon of iodophor soltion and spritz it all over. Rinse with tap water, then spritz with sulphite. Remember to put the grapes into a bag for pressing.

I think the "keep all air away from finished wine" approach we were taught is a little overdone. In traditional commercial winmaking the wine is aged for years in oak barrels, which micro-oxygenate the wine the whole time. I think that the air introduced by racking every few months while bulk...

I find myself using blue painter's tape and a sharpie. I have no artistic talent at all.

I just priced the same 10 cases from George. He is $7.49 more. Given George's customer service and Mark's packing, I would go with FVW for the order. The Ebay guy implies that breakage is to be expected and would leave you with the loss. I doubt George would, and having ordered many cases of...

Arrowroot is a thickener like cornstarch. I can't see it having much effect because, like cornstarch, you have to boil it to activate the thickening effect. Without the heat I think it would just clarify out.

Could be wine diamonds - potassium bitartrate. It is a precipitate that forms when wine is chilled. Commercial wineries avoid the problem by chilling the wine before bottling and filtering it out. I don't have room in the fridge for a 6 gallon carboy, so I just live with it.

Good luck!

What follows is my opinion. Yes, you can ferment to dry, and then some, in a 10 gallon trashcan type fermenter, as long as you can resist opening the lid. While the lid doesn't seal like the 7.9 gallon fermenter does, it provides sufficient sealing that the blanket of CO2 from primary...

Wade, How much Tancor Grand Cru do you typically add to a 6 gallon batch?

I've often wondered why the NWS doesn't tow trailers in front of tornados to lead them out into the country and away from populated areas.

That's the color from the strawberries. Final color on mine is not that impressive, but I am getting rave reviews on it.

Scuba, I recently bottled that one. My procedure with these types of kits is to add half the F-pack up front and use the remaining half for sweetening after stabilizing. You can add as much of the F-pack as you want at any point while active fermentation is going on. As I said, I add it during...

Beer Clean Sanitizer is a chlorine donor. You can achieve the same effect by mixing a tablespoon of bleach in a gallon of water. There are 2 reasons why I do not use chlorine-based sanitizers. 1) Shelf life. The shelf life of a bleach solution is measured in hours, while a K-meta solution...

I have a couple of mayo jars full of change. The last time I rolled it all up it came to over $50. I can't imagine how much a 6.5 gallon carboy would hold.

U-Haul has boxes designed for glawssware with internal dividers that might work. Don't know how much they cost.

For glassware check with George. He had custom glasses made up for the Winestocks.