Recent content by Curt

Ithink that both the plastic and the brass irises (iri?) can be replaced. I believe another difference is that the Italian corker has a longer handle on it. It also has provision for doing crown capsor champaigne corks with thecorrect adapters.

Be sure to de-gas your red wine extra well. They seem to be harder to get all the co2 out of for some reason. Congrats on your first batch done.

The fining agent in your kit doesn't happen to be isinglass does it?

I think you guys will wind up with a better end result if you go for 3 cans per gallon of the concentrates in the one gallon batches. If you look at the directions on the side of the can it says to add 3 cans of water to the 11.5 oz can of concentrate. That only adds up to 46 oz at the correct...

Filled with hot water in a laundry sink full of hot water and the nasty ones go to recycle. The only consistently ugly one that I've run into is LaJoya wines, but that doesn't bother me much because they're those horrible tapered bottles anyway.

John, Typically people use a monthly racking schedule until there is just a dusting of lees on the bottom. At that point it can wait as long as you would like. The frequent racking at the beginning is to prevent the thick layer of dead yeast cells and other detrius from starting to rot.

Kathy, Potassium sorbate won't kill the yeast. What it does is to keep it from budding and multiplying so that what yeast was there at the time of adding the sorbate will still keep on doing it's thing until it dies a natural death. There just won't be any new yeast. That's why you would...

When I have a batch ready to bottle I usually recruit three or four people to help with the process. Rarely do I have a refusal as they know that after the bottling is done we will have a tasting and a BBQ.

Your total acidity (TA) won't change regardless of how much sugar you add. Your perceived acidity, however, will. What is your reason for wanting to speed up the fermentation?

Harry, I would most certainly taste the juice before deciding to ferment it. If it puts "hair" on your teeth big time with it's astringency I would consider passing on it unless you are blessed with more patience than I am. Boiling the plums with the pits in would have extracted massive...

Ramona, Next batch try a handful of oak in the secondary. I only have 3 bottles out of 25 left. Yummy!

A carboy bottler here. I just put a foot long piece of 1x1 under one side of the carboy to tip it away from me and tape the racking cane in place with a 4" piece of masking tape used like it was draped around your neck. I attach my foot valve bottling wand and then cover the top of the carbot by...

Am I the only one that uses teeth to uncap those critters? Must be left over from opening beer bottles in the "good old days".

Hmmmm, Sounds just like the description of a "Jackpine Savage".

Start searching the wine supply sites for a high end kit. Buy whatever extra equipment you need and dive in. There are a quite a few kits that will fill your needs from many manufacturers.