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Everclear works. Cheap and high alcohol means it stays free of contamination for longer. Plus, if you get any suckback, no worries as 1) it's clean, and 2) you're making alcohol anyway, and 3) it has no taste.

"Bubbler" as in airlock? For a short period of time, in an 'S' shaped airlock, probably. Cheap vodka is always better.

Kit arrived Friday. I'll get started on it this week and update here, in case anyone's interested.

By most accounts of people who seem to know about these things, heat makes wine age faster, but not necessarily better. Take from that what you will got your specific situation.

Sounds like a group effort. OP wanted to use commercial yeast, but partner vetoed and forced a wild fermentation. Sounds like the partner is getting very interesting advice.

Funny how that always seems to happen, no?

Oops...didn't see the last few posts. Glad bottling went well, and it seems to taste good. If it tastes good, why mess with it? At least do a trial if you're really wanting to do something. And it's already aged 7 years, how much longer are you planning to let it sit in the bottle?

Sure. Breaking the cap is always necessary. My point about a loose cover was meant to be in contrast to an airlocked carboy. One assumes stirring to drive off CO2 and punch the cap. I wasn't intending to generalize about processes in larger operations like you showed.

Is all that racking really necessary? What kind of buildup of lees/sediment do you have in the carboy?

Like others have stated, I think you'll find that overkill for most wine. Some whites do better with a bit of oxygen up front and then getting airlocked, like beer, but most reds prefer less oxygen up front and more slowly throughout (that's what the loose cover gets you). Don't know for sure...

Maybe it killed him.

As in brewing, you always need to think about how much oxygen to introduce. Stirring introduces some oxygen, but not much. What wine are you making, and how were you oxygenating you wort?

After 7 years, any yeast present in there is dead. It's possible to introduce something new at bottling time, but how likely that is depends on a number of factors. What was the OG?

Got it. Well, it was worth exploring the option.

Is the price quoted from the Czech company for export? As in, was the VAT already taken out, or would that further reduce the price?

In my very humble opinion, the only thing you should do now is finish your EM. It's way too early to be worried about anything other than a high FG.

Airtight is good in general, but pill bottles aren't that. I use Mason jars to cheaply achieve airtight storage.

PBW works wonders on old crud.

Are they reusable? If so, it might be worthwhile to explore a group buy.

It'll fit, obviously, but I wouldn't leave it there long. Oxidation could easily be an issue, if most of the fermenting is over.