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I'll soon have a few 5 gal buckets of paw paw's. Never tried them before, does anyone have some advice? Thanks in advance.

Out of an over abundance of cucumbers I made a 1 gal batch of Cuke wine. I racked it other day and it tastes just like pickle juice out of the jar. Is this right or did it go bad on me? I added some more sugar, hopefully that mellows it out some. Any body ever try this before? Or is it supposed...

A call back to when Mr. Gower the druggist hits the bottle hard after his son dies of influenza in the old Christmas movie "It's a Wonderful Life".

We make chocolate wine at Christmas every year by mixing some of our cherry or berry wines with some eggnog and Herseys chocolate syrup. Tastes great but because of the eggnog it must be drank within a week to 10 days.

Welcome. Canton / Peoria are here.

oh, I was worried you watched that video and Samara called and said "7 days".

Hi. What part of Central Illinois? I'm in Canton. Here is a link to a FB group I started for central Il. wine makers. https://www.facebook.com/groups/409633329072953/

btw, we made our persimmon in two different batches. Roughly 50 lbs of persimmons cut with around 12 gal's of water. This made three 5 gal carboys worth. For the first 3 days we stirred the mixture up regularly while in the primary, then gave it 2 days the settle and siphoned off the top. There...

All of our wine is very basic. Just hand picked fruit, yeast and sugar. The persimmon is a little different in that we cut the persimmon slop with water while in the primary. Other than that we use 2 lbs of sugar per gallon of wine, so 10 lbs for a 5 gal carboy. It's usually 2-5 days in the...

Racked my six batches off the sludge tonight. Went from 30 gal of wine and sludge, down to around 15-16 gal's of straight wine. Blended a batch of cotes de blanc's with a natural yeast batch, and blended a batch of champagne with some cotes de blanc. Will bottle late February.

Just opened up my steam juicer from under the tree. Anyone have a good recipe that uses one?

I have six 5 gallon batches of persimmon going now, and from the looks of them I don't expect any more than 15-17 gallons of wine to bottle. But that is the nature of the beast when it comes to persimmons, but still worth it, one of my favorites.

Have you noticed a difference in taste or flavor using the raw cane versus the white granulized sugar?

Natural yeast batch finally started bubbling steady. Hopefully by February we'll have something worth drinking.

I think the temperature is the reason. It was getting very cool at night while it was in the primary. Low 40's and the only place we can keep it was in the garage.

The natural yeast batch is not really doing much. It's formed a cap of foam inside the carboy and is putting off very few bubbles. The other 5 batches that have yeast are bubbling right along. I'm thinking of pitching some yeast into the natural batch? What do you all think?

Did 6 different 5 gallon batches this year. Tried Cotes de Blanc, Pasture Red, Pasture Champagne, and a batch using the natural yeast of the fruit.

I second the Cotes de Blancs. I use it for most all of my country fruit wines.

Grapes are the one fruit we've had spotty luck getting ahold of. Have not heard from our grape connection this year. We have made batches of strawberry, raspberry, blackberry and peach so far this year. Still have apple, pear and persimmon yet to do this year. But I'd love for all of us from...

Hello from Canton, Il. Also look for Central Illinois Wine Makers group on Face Book.