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Welcome! Good luck in your endeavors!

I punch down when I get the opportunity. So sometimes 2 times a day, sometimes 4. Depends if the kids will let me after I get home from work. In that way, I guess my 2 year old is helping to shape the flavor profile of my wine.

I've found that a sour taste and the wine not being clear sometimes go hand in hand. If there is a puff of sediment it adds a bit of a taste that isn't quite right. Time + Rackings should do it. If you can order fining agents, those will accelerate the process. Congrats on the first wine, and...

Update. I waited two more weeks. The Frontenac started Turning to raisins so I pulled them in. I continued battling chipmunks at the time, and now have a grand total of 9 kills to my name, mostly from the pool of death trap. It worked well. Little rodents went for the trap over the grapes, and I...

First 5 went too quick. Already off of the rack. Got another 5 started which should be done in a few weeks. 3239 + 5 = 3244

Looks like Concord to me.

Thanks for the Info. I imagine if I wait another two weeks or so I'll be looking at 24 degrees brix, I don't think I'll have any need for more sugar. I just checked the seeds and they look black/brown, not a hint of green on them. I think at this point it's safe to go ahead and bring them in and...

The beetles leave and the other pests come in. Chipmunks and birds have consumed 75% of my Frontenac grapes. Learning how to handle netting has cost me a bit. I'm anxious to pull the grapes so I just checked the numbers today: The #: 22.5 Brix 2.92 pH 15.75 g/l TA Not sure if my TA numbers are...

I got 15 Itasca vines from NE vine supply this year too. A handful are already up to where the 6 foot wire would be had I been on top of things and gotten my wire up yet. I used grow tubes to get them started as I was worried about rabbits chewing on them. The tubes are off now and they seem to...

I cut the bottom tip off of a Vacu vin wine preserver. I have a bung that fits the top, and then I use the little vacuum pump that comes with it. I pump it every few days, and eventually the bubbles stop. Once that has happened I know the wine is degassed...

Yeah I think it will still help, while the ones that are getting at my vines are dying, there are still several elsewhere in the field that are munching on something I haven't treated. I hadn't heard how many eggs a beetle lays, but considering how many of them there are out there I guess that's...

I had to reapply the Sevin once so far when they started reappearing a bit. 2 applications during the season wouldn't be bad at all. In the future I'll probably end up with 3 applications total spaced out during the feeding season of the beetles. I've considered sowing in some milky spore. I'm...

Certainly. I've got another row with wider spacing, and some vines where I culled the crop entirely. A little trial and error should give me plenty of information at the end. Leaving a partial crop on in this year seems to have no overall effect on the vigor (The cropless vines vs the cropped...

It'll be 5 gallons when it's done. 3231+ 5 = 3236 (Sorry about the sideways pic.)

Taken today! We're chugging along. Newest rows are growing well, and the 2 year old ones are out of control. I left a lot of fruit on the Frontenac (the row that makes up the background) even though I'm only in the second year on them. I had done some research, and came upon a study about...

Welcome to the forum. I'm out in Warrenville, so not far from where you're at. My lawn is littered with weeds. I love my grapes more. I weed whack and pull in the rows, and just mow in between. I can't be bothered to go at all of the weeds. I have done some spot treatment of Glyphosate in...

Yeah. I lost a good deal of my Frontenac to Black rot, and some Niagara Grapes to powdery mildew. I ended up using Immunox (Myclobutanil) about two weeks ago and I haven't had the disease spread to any other clusters since. Veraison is just starting now. I'll make sure to have a good program...

I suppose they go really well with wine... https://www.amazon.com/dp/0739019325/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

My First Bach was Invention 14. I know a lot of people go for Invention 1 or Invention 8, which are good pieces, but I just really liked 14. I then went on to Invention 13 for my Second Bach. My third was Invention 4 and my fourth was invention 8. Then I went on to Rachmaninoff and Chopin. I...

I've typically use plain ol' table sugar. For a cherry wine I did I actually found some concentrated cherry juice (the kind that comes in the frozen cans) and dropped them in for sweetening, it altered the flavors slightly, but in a good way. Kind of like an F pack out of a kit.