Recent content by Cracked Cork

Good job Wade, but your arrows go both ways, they should follow the flow of the wine. CC

What was your recipe Bert, do you think the taste was just because it was to dry? What kind of honey did you use?CC

5 gal of juice from 60 pounds of strawberries would be good! CC

A little oak goes nicely with strawberry, but not to much. Together with the extra body you get from the malt and you really have something special. We opened up a 10 year old strawberry, it filled the house with strawberry perfume, and had not taste whatsoever, I didnt use enough berries! I...

Go out right NOW and get at least 20 more pounds of strawberries and dump them into your primary and leave them for a few days, strain them out and then rack to a carboy. You are going to have a very weak flavored watery wine if you dont fix it NOW! Cracked

Extra light is the only one you want to use with wine, especially with strawberry. To dissolve it we use a whisk in the hot juice, a pound in 3 gallons is about right. I was trying to figure out why you went through the trouble of steaming them just to put the pulp back in, one of the main...

I want to take 30 pounds for 3 gallons. Why did you steam juice them if you are putting the pulp back into the must, you could have saved yourself the trouble of steaming them if you were going to do that? We have also had some good luck adding a little extra dried malt extract to really boost...

Are you using 100% strawberry juice from the steamer? How much juice are you getting from your strawberries? We are thinking of steaming a batch and going 100% juice this spring. Crackedcork

Hi Clark, it all depends on the fruit. With something like blackberries all there is left is some goop,, I throw that out, with elderberries I drain the pulp after steaming to let anything left over drain out but I dont put the pulp back in otherwise what was the point of steaming them? Another...

Clark it depends on the fruits you want to steamjuice. We juice elderberries, we get about a gallon of juice from 10 pounds of berries, leaving the pulp behind leaves a lot of the tannins so we can get a lot of flavor without making it really tannic. You still have to add pectinase and check the...

16 quarts of blackberry juice, 1 gallon of honey, a handfull of oak chips and you got a great mead crackedcork

You can also use it to stir up your bentonite, stir up your KMeta or sorbate, lots more things than just stir up some yeast. How big a starter do you guys make?CC

There are also small tabletop shakers that would allow you to do multiple starter cultures at one time instead of just one :) Crackedcork http://www.southwestscience.com/SBT300_Digital_Shaker.html

We keep an excel spreadsheet and write down everytime we do something to the wine. I also keep an index card with the carboy and write down when it was racked, the SG and if anything important was done to it. It sounds like you are already doing a good job logging your progress. CC

I forget who had mentioned the idea at first but one clever member puts marbles in her steamer bottom, they jiggle around while it has water in it, if they stop jiggling you are in trouble and need to add water NOW. CC