Exavier Steel from Dallas, Texas.

[ExavierSteel]

Hi. My name is Exavier Steel and this is my first post. I guess I’ll introduce myself. I'm 35, single, never married, no kids, and have been drinking wine for about 10-11 months now. Before that I didn't drink at all for 18 years and back then it was cheap beer, cheap booze and Boone’s farm with a purple passion chaser. I also smoked for about 20 years so everything tasted bland anyway. Now however, over the last few years, I've become a bit of a foodie, and decided that I was finally old enough to be a responsible drinker, so I got myself into trying wine. During the last year it's been mostly cheap wine, but as of yet I still don't know the difference anyhow.

Anyway, last month I was visiting my kinfolk in Burlington, Iowa, and I finally tried some moscato, and man that stuff is great, and I found some locally wineries making some fruit wine which I never even knew existed. I tried a bottle of sweet red cherry wine and it was actually pretty good and when I go back this fall I'm going to try a few others like Rhubarb, which last month just seemed to crazy to even buy, as at the time that seemed nuts that someone would turn that into wine. I also tried some dandelion wine that some Amish folk made, but that wasn't my thing, but I ironically want to try and make it next spring just for kicks.

Anyway, I came home to Dallas and looked up fruit wines as I found it so fascinating in concept, and now two weeks later having read tons of websites and a few books I'm hooked on wanting to try and make the stuff myself Nothing to serious at first of course, I want to baby step into the pool instead of doing a triple back flip in, mostly because I still don't quite understand the whole sugar hydrometer thing yet so I think I'll just make a few of these smaller ghetto recipes first and move on from there. Just enough to try and learn what I'm doing.

Now I do still have some questions though both before I begin and will have more as I'm making my first batches. I don't want to overwhelm the forum with tons of threads with my crazy questions, so I think I will just confine them to this one thread until told otherwise. I'd like to get started this week on a few gallon jugs of homemade hooch to see how it goes. As such I plan to buy just what I need at this moment, but if I do need it, I'm going to buy it. A no more no less thing for now when it comes to equipment. Hopefully some of you can help me out a bit when needed. Anyway that’s mostly it. I'm also canning salsa and buying an elliptical workout machine this week as well so this should be one of my busier and definitely more expensive weeks for the year. Below are some questions that I have right now. Cheers.

A Few Very Random Questions for Today: (Should I have posted these questions elsewhere?)


1. I bought some Carlo Rossi so that I can use the bottle and enjoy the wine. Can I rebottle this wine in wine bottles with corks so that I can use the jug right away?
2. My Carlo and Rossi says it’s 8% alcohol. All the websites say that I should make my wine at least 10-13, but not higher as it will taste bad? Any comments on this for both my wine and CR’s? Out of curiosity, should I store my CR wine in the fridge because it’s only 8%, and some dude on one website says any wine under 10% will go bad sitting out? I like their sweet red at room temp.
3. Can I bottle wine in pop bottles and use caps and/or corks in them? (Yea, I’m weird, but I got lots of Ale-8-One bottles sitting around taking up space.)
4. If I’m making one gallon of wine, can I use a 7.8 gallon fermentor to make just one gallon?
5. Has anyone used that bag dispenser system “Wine on Tap” for their homemade wine?
6. I live in an air-conditioned condo in Dallas. Is that going to be a problem for making and storing wine?
7. Do I sanitize my bottles right before I bottle? Does the sanitizer taste bad?
8. Can I store wine in EZ Cap bottles?
9. Can I use those Zorks instead of corks for my wine?
10. Why make and blend rhubarb wine with another wine? Why not just make more of another wine instead?

 

[Arne]

First off, welcome to the forum. Next, these answers are my opinions. Take them for what they are worth.
1. I believe you can and you should be o.k.
2. When you have low alcohol, your storage time goes down. The alcohol helps protect your wine. Any wine that is opened gets exposed to oxygen. As it oxidizes, the wine changes taste. I have found after opening that some wines will stay good for a while, while others start going south after only a couple of days.
3.You should be able to use pop bottles for short term. I use some old crimp on cap type ones for skeeter pee. Course it doesn't last very long but usually tastes better after sitting in the bottles for a month or so.
4. Think you can use the big primary, but I believe you would be better off with a smaller one like 3 gal or so. Try a couple of local bakeries. They will probably give you a smaller food grade bucket or you will be able to buy it for a buck or two.
5. Have the wine on tap. Works good for a party deal. Also have kept some in the refrigerator in it for a couple or three weeks. Wine stayed good to the bottom of the bag.Would probably stay good at room temp too, but have not tried that. It pretty much keeps the oxygen away from your wine.
6. You have to store your wines where you can. Should be ok in your apt. but it mite not last quite as long as in a cooler spot.
7. Sanitize before bottling. Use a k-meta solution. I put it in the bottle, shake it around a bit, and pour the excess back out. let it sit for a few minutes and bottle it. Never had any off flavors from it.
8. Probably be ok for a while, but not sure what EZ caps are.
9. Yep, but do not know how long you can store with the Zorks.
10. Blending can change the flavors of your wines. If you get one you don't quite like you can blend it with another to make a better one.
Good luck with your quest. Read thru our forums, check out the stickies at the top of the different forums. Lots of great information here. Have more questions, jump on the beginners or fruit forums and ask away. Always somebody here to give advise. Lots of knowledge here that folks are willing to share. Arne.

 

[Guckles]

Welcome to the forum! It's great to see another Texan here, although I must admit I'm a little jealous of you since you live so close to Fine Vine Wines and won't have to pay shipping costs!

I don't know enough to technically answer most of your questions, but I'll jump in on two things. We've had good success storing opened wine with a VacuVin stopper. This pulls out some of the air from an empty bottle. It's a good tool to have since you can use it to check your degassing progress on your own wines too!

There are lots of downsides to having an air-conditioned place,as Arne mentioned, but one upside we've noticed is that since our temperatures are high, we haven't had to worry about stuck fermentations or brew belts as many farther north do. Win some, loose some!