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I Love the DIY rack. Try to get video of your disgorging festivities. It's always fun to have a video record of that one bottle that goes a little haywire.

Makes perfect sense to me. "Controlled lazy" is the process I enjoy the most and have had nothing but delicious results. I love the idea of pH be damned (to an extent). Personally I could probably let the fruit hang a little longer. Nice tip! Also, not knowing about other winemaker's process...

I would love to hear about your process here. I've had wines in the Wisconsin/Michigan area from Chambourcin and Frontenac that were "made to be more like Vinifera" and they were terrible. Strange tannins and ridiculously high % alcohol that wiped out any nuance. I've had some others that were...

This is for the crusher/destemmer but I believe the crusher components are similar if not the same. Might give you a start. I tried doing some googling myself and didn't come up with much.

I am now complete with my harvesting. Frontenac, Aromella, Delaware (all 3 producing about half yield for some reason), regent, and Blaufrankish (first pic), which is a delightful find. I harvested 125# this week from a vineyard in northern Utah. They planted a beautifully wide selection of...

I’ve had that too. Slight variations in stopper sizes/not remembering which size fits best with each carboy. I use medium weight jewelers wire and wrap it around the neck of the carboy where the lip is and up over the bung - sort of like a champagne cork. Works like a charm. I just keep a couple...

Perhaps my statement was confusing. To protect your wine you can artificially add a layer of CO2 either with Dry Ice or a CO2 tank. I only mention it to let you know that you can have a less than full vessel as long as you provide CO2 (or Argon) to displace Oxygen in the vessel. If you mix the...

Beautiful cluster!

That temperature is totally fine for fermenting and per Bryan's comments, keep watching the SG and as long as it's dropping it's fine but you don't want a stuck ferment, which would be indicated by off smells or SG that doesn't change after a couple of days while there is still sugar in the...

Less CO2 just means less active fermentation. You’re just enjoying some low and slow fermentation most likely. However one thing to check is if the slowdown is not from lower temperature, smell it regularly and watch out for a sulphur/match/fart smell. That’s a sign of stressed out yeast and...

Welcome!

Very cool. Thanks!

Fermentrack looks awesome! I've been considering creating my own raspberrypi or ardunio/spark based temperature logger. I don't really control temps during fermentation as my basement winery area is 65ºF+/- 2º all year round and I'm always pleased with the results but I do want to track the must...

That is quite the pile of grapes. Are you doing a field blend or is that just a wonderfully pleasing photo? I'm curious about your Arandell, my vines died in the second year. Really odd but I was looking forward to trying them and comparing to Aromella, which are healthy as can be.

Weird harvest year. I got about half yield from the last 6 year average. Super small berries on my Aromella and lots of sunburn and raisining. Frontenac also had small berries and some significant bird damage. Delaware was the only variety that produced about as expected. Still have some Foche...

Sounds good. I probably won't harvest again until the week after. I'll message you directly so we can coordinate.

I have the Enotalia crusher/destemmer manual version. If you don’t trust the machine to destem then just get the crusher but it really does a wonderful job without breaking/crushing stems and one person loading while the other cranks is pretty easy. @Musissa and @Obbnw let me know if you want...

I have found that it's not necessarily the cold winters that affect the Vinefera grapes in Utah, it's the regular late frosts (mid may is common) and cool early season. Either it's frost killed buds or not enough growing degree days to get to full ripeness. I'm excited to see how your winemaking...

Hello! I’m in Murray by wheeler farm. We almost have enough growers to have a club! I have 3 regent and 3 Leon millot plus all of the grapes at thanksgiving point (about 55 vines are wine grapes). Great to have you and I’m looking forward to hearing about your progress. For Utah wines that are...

@Rice_Guy Dredging up an old thread because I remember you posting this. I've been thinking a lot about this both in context of my own tastes as well as the potential to go commercial and how to build a good brand. I was on my annual Midwest road trip tasting hybrid wines and my impressions are...