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Perhaps it's the "Lodi" juice, and you guys should try juices from sources other than the central valley? Then again, I haven't tried Lodi juices so I have no idea. Technically, even the best of the best of the best wine kits were made from lowly grape juice. And as with kits, you obviously...

While I appreciate your advice regarding doing kits instead of fresh grape juice, I make between 20 and 30 juice pails a year, and true disasters have been extremely rare for me, at least during the last 20 years or so. I make a couple of premium kits each year, so I'm also familiar with the...

I did a bucket of Cabernet Sauvignon a couple months back and fermented it with a frozen skin pack to completion. Everything checked out fine as far as SG (1.092), pH approx. 3.35, and a nice dark color. Once racked to a secondary, it dropped clear within days and had the dreaded "clear/thin"...

Yup, commercial dry wines. They have a lot of rules about what you can put into a commercial wine - both for good and for bad. For example, we home winemakers can balance grape wines and even add sugar without the wine police busting us! ;) Interestingly, k-meta is allowed in wine up to a...

I use sorbate only for wine that's sweetened with added sugar after fermentation has completed, and that's only one little batch per year because we like dry wine. Once all the sugar has been turned into alcohol, the instability in dry grape wines at this point is due to malic acid, and MLF...

This is probably 1 teaspoon of metabisulphite solution equal to 1 campden tablet - a solution being a 1 to 8 volume ratio between metabisulphite and water I think? 1/4 teaspoon of metabisulphite will replace 5 capden tablets.

Stores around here (in Ontario), usually sell diammonium phosphate as yeast nutrient. Yeast energizer can be just about anything depending on the store, but usually contains trace minerals and vitamin B complex, along with yeast hulls, magnisum sulphate, and sometimes tricalcium phosphate. The...

I've never had to "degas" a wine before. If you've bulk aged your wine a year and it still has a lot of dissolved CO2 in it, you've had a solid bung in it and it's been under pressure. Even a few weeks of leaving CO2 filled wine at normal atmospheric pressure makes a huge difference...

Even dead yeast?

And close to the top: "<a href="http://www.bacchuswinecellars.com/judge.html" target="_blank">A wine's body is measured by swirling it around the glass and seeing how long it takes the wine to flow down the sides"</a> Wikipedia specifically mentions alcohol content in their...

I once read that the origin of the term "body" came from some ancient wine making practice of throwing dead animals (like rats) into fermenting wine in order to add more thickness to the product. I have no idea if that's true, but when I look on the Internet for definitions of body in relation...

The best way is instead of making quick wine, make LOTS of it within a relatively short period of time. Even with a cheap beer kit, you're still looking at 3 weeks minimum. If you don't have the room to store and make that much beverage, then if you're in Canada you should try the brew on...

I know this may be controversial, but at least 60% or 70% of the wine I make goes to completion in the primary. The only time I press before that is if the particular skins (grape or fruit) are very high in harsh tannins, or I desire a more fruity wine that's ready to drink earlier (about 30% of...

I never knew that before (and never experienced it). But then again, I've only had experience with little bitty barrels of 50L capacity that will over oxidize wine though micro-oxidation if left too long no matter how neutral it is. And depending on the wine, that's only 2 to 6 months (and...

More disadvantages with a barrel compared to glass, stainless steel, or plastic: 1. More difficult and risky to buy used. 2. More apt to leak. 3. Require more maintenance (rehydration, sulfur sticks, or always keeping full, etc.) 4. More practical in larger sizes that cannot be...

In the past I've used the fancy upscale technique of sliding over a garbage bag over the carboy with a hole torn in the bottom for the airlock to poke through. The advantage is that once your wine is complete, you can make the hole bigger and use it as a classy raincoat.

But Dean, that wouldn't be following the directions. You're supposed to bottle in 6 weeks! Just kidding. I only have one barrel (50L) and I suppose I can think about aging 2 kits in there because my fall grape wine has to come out. It's completely neutral, so I actually have to add oak in the...

I don't doubt your father makes excellent wine that way. I know these Portuguese ol'timers here who can eat a few sample grapes and then comment on the taste for acid levels and brix. I kid you not. But I'll never be that good, so I need the hydrometer and acid testing stuff.

I think the hydrometer is probably the most important measuring device we have because we aren't bound by commercial winery rules. We can actually add sugar to get the brix up without the wine police putting us out of business :p Apart from adjusting the must, it's invaluable for telling us...

Yikes, that's pretty bad to find gassy commercial wine. But I can't say I'm surprised really, since margins are thin and I bet some wineries want to get it into the bottle within weeks of fermentation. I've been drinking my own wine for over 30 years, but I still buy commercial wines, at...