Recent content by rocketguy

Lesson learned. I understand the airlock issue. I deal with that sort of thing at my day job. It was pretty obvious that zero gas was being produced. The little cap in the airlock didn't twitch after 3 days and I didn't want to break the seal and risk contamination when I was pretty sure...

So, I picked up a couple packs of Red Star Montrachet, made a big, strong starter and added it yesterday. Almost 24 hrs later it's still chugging like a train. I think I overcame the preservatives. Now to see whether the recipe was worth this trouble...

The missus asked for strawberry wine with 1) more strawberry flavor, 2) less sweetness and 3) more alcohol. I added a couple small jars of preserves to my simple syrup and brought the starting SG up to 1.085. The basic kit starts at around 1.050-1.055. I've done 5-6 similar kits and always...

"Just make sure you have a jam made from fruit and sugar only. No conservatives like sulphite, benzoate or sorbate and you will be fine." So, let's say a newby winemaker decided to add some jam to a wine kit but didn't consider the preservatives issue until after 72 hrs and no fermentation...