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This is my solution to cold stabilization. We'll see if it works. My son called me a smart maniac. I shall report my results...

I was at Lowes today in Inverness, Florida which is about as Central Florida as it gets. I was looking for fig trees and came across a large variety of grape plants. Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon, and many others. I was of the understanding that nothing would grow in our area except Muscadine...

Lacking real lemonade, I blended some of my Skeeter Pee in with my iced tea over dinner. I want to call it a 'Hard Arnold Palmer', but Wifey won't let me.

Over the weekend I was finally able to make my way up to our "local" home brew store which is 70 miles away in neighboring Gainesville, Fl. The store, Hoggtowne Ale Works, is located right on University Avenue. To make the situation worse, we arrived right in the middle of the Orange and Blue...

I racked my 4 month old batch of muscadine this evening that is bulk aging. This is my fourth racking since primary. I had not stabilized until this evening after racking, and do not add clearing agents to my muscadine batches. This is the first time I have had debris that look like basil and a...

I started my batch of strawberry on Saturday. I chopped up several flats of very ripe strawberries in a straining bag and basically pureed them with a knife and potato masher. I added a little bit of tannin, pectic enzyme, and 1/4 teaspoon of Meta bi sulfate. I added water up to 5 gallons but...

I had some friends attend a party this past weekend made up of amateur winemakers. 1 of my friends purchased me a glass 5 gallon carboy for 19 dollars as a gift. I received it last night and found a dead Roach inside of it. It is a brand new glass carboy but apparently these were all stored...

So living in Central Florida has its perks. My fruit dealer just called me and offered me flats of strawberries which are about 12 pounds beach for $7.50 a flat. I may even get them cheaper before the season is out. I have a friend that makes wine that told me he would never use more than 3...

I am just a few weeks away from bottling my ice Riesling and it has occurred to me that I do not have enough of the same 750 milliliter bottles to keep them all and will have to buy a few cases. The other option is to put it in my 375 ml bottles like the ice Riesling comes in, but I have only...

I recently bought a pound of L.D.Carlson wine tannin. The directions say to add 1/4 teaspoon per gallon of white wine, 1/3 teaspoon per gallon of red wine, and 1/2 teaspoon per gallon for fruit wines. This goes against most recipes I have seen that call for 1/2 teaspoon of tannin for six...

I am starting my first kit wine tonight. It is an Ice Riesling. There are all sorts of ingredients I have never heard of and get to learn. Bentinite. Kieselsol. Chitosan. Good times.

Oak has been one of the areas that I have yet to dive into, as I am primarily a fruit winemaker. I am curious how many of you add oak to your fruit wines. If so, which ones?

I have felt awkward every time I used acetone, Oops, or Goo Gone because of the high toxicity and odors left behind, and found them not as effective as I wished they were. Tonight I de-labeled 100 commercially labeled bottles and ended up with about twenty that had that miserable goo that is...

I backsweetened my 6 gallons of Muscadine wine today. My first REAL wine backsweetening. I let this wine go completely natural, and only finally added sulfate at the three month racking. I cleared all on it's own. The starting SG was off the chart, and well below the last line on my hydrometer...

Am I the only one that still triple rinses his bottles and carboys after using the One Step No Rinse sanitizer?

I found this cool. I want this poster.

I hereby dedicate this thread to the experimental winemaker in us and all the future "WOW!" 's we will encounter. Two most recent wow's: I used RED STAR Pasteur Red yeast in my latest batch of Dragon's Blood. It has taken on a completely different mouth feel and made me proclaim, "WOW!"...

There are some labels that I have identified that are easiest removed by heating them in the oven for about 5 minutes. There are most others that are easiest removed not by heating but rather by soaking and they come right off. Does anyone have a solution for removing the clear plastic labels...

Being thrifty, and a HVAC contractor, I degassed a few of my wines last night using my vacuum pump used for bringing air conditioning systems to a full vacuum of 29.9 inches mercury. I have read I don't want to bring it above around 22 so I was careful. I used 3/8" tubing and a fitting into a...

I have read dozens of threads explaining the methods of degassing, but there seems little in timing. It seems degassing will aid in clearing, but I see some that wait for their wine to clear to degas. I'd like to hear from everyone as to what point they degas.