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My wife enjoys being the corker, labeler and foiler in our 'winery'. But the last couple batches she's not having much fun. Our Portuguese Floor Corker has become very hard to push the compressed cork out of the corker. The corker is about a year and a half old, probably 450 or more bottles...

Hi all, I'm going to experiment again. This time I've ordered a lug (18#) of Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon grapes from Harford Winery. My plan is to de-stem and crush the grapes by hand, add Kmeta, wait a day, add Pectic Enzymes and then give them another day to get used to each other. On...

This afternoon I did a blind taste test with my wife on 5 WE Eclipse Lodi Ranch 11 kits we’ve made over the last 26 months. Here are the kits and some notes on their making and aging: 3 month old LR11, made with 6 weeks Extended Maceration (EM), currently bulk aging in carboy. Added 1 cup...

One of the things I'm most disappointed about in the kits I've made is lack of a good nose. My experience is almost entirely in Wine Expert Eclipse kits so maybe it's unique to them, but I doubt it. Has anyone made any kits with a nose that is good? if so, what kits or what did you tweak or...

I thought I would share this link that discusses a study addressing American wine preferences in 2016, with a comparison to 2015. https://www.winebusiness.com/news/?go=getArticle&dataid=177492 Nothing earth shattering in it, just an interesting read and one that can be used to make all...

It's been quite a while, but never give up.

This is a quick half day project I did this weekend to provide me with a consistent temperature fermentation area. My basement is staying about 65-66 degrees now which makes degassing nearly impossible. The last two winters I’ve used a tub and aquarium heater to keep my primary and secondary...

Maybe I'm lazy or maybe I've just lost the urge to fight crowds, but I'm learning to love black Friday gift card specials. Without leaving the house I was able to get: $100 gift certificate to Top Golf (restaurant and heated driving range with electronic scoring of your shots) with a bonus...

Following up on a recent post that included clips of Tim Vandergrift experimenting with extended maceration on an Amarone kit, I've decided to give it a try with a WE Eclipse Lodi Ranch 11 Cabernet Sauvignon. Here's his first video on his experiment...

I have a 23l Vadai that has a leak at the end of one of the staves. It's unusual, in that the stave is located about a third of way down the side from the bung hole, but it only leaks when I put in the last 1/2 cup of wine. The total leak is generally only about a teaspoonful which runs down...

I thought I would share my work area and hope to see some of yours. I think we run the gamut here, from a corner of a kitchen to a full professional winery. What we all have in common is fun making wine. Maybe we can learn a few new tips along the way by seeing how others are set up. I use...

For all you vacuum degassers, I need your assistance. This is my first batch that I'm trying to degas with the Harbor Freight electric vacuum pump. I was hoping for the 10 minute degas I've heard about. 10 minutes came and went, then 20, then 30 and bubbles were still coming up. They were...

I've decided to move forward with plans for a small 500 bottle, plus about 6 carboys, AC cooled wine storage room in my basement. I was thinking about going entirely passive, but as Mike pointed out a small room AC is cheap to buy and in a properly insulated wine room cheap to operate. So...

Hi all, I'm thinking of converting part of my basement to a passive Wine Cellar. I would love to be able to use a corner, but that's not possible. Only one side of the cellar would be against a foundation wall. I live near Baltimore in a small house with a basement. Since I live on a...

The newest member of our family has arrived, a brand spanking new, bouncing 23L baby Vadai barrel. I can't wait to get this in action. I'm going to start prepping tomorrow, then I will start fermenting an Eclipse Dry Creek Chardonnay in it Wednesday or Thursday. Already made reds waiting...

Hi all, Joeswine has a great thread on tweaking cheap kits, and some of that may well apply here. Hopefully in this thread we can share our tweaks for High End Kits that we are specifically planning on aging 18 months and longer. I believe that kit makers start with a great product and...

My wife and I are heading to Solvang, Buellton, Los Olivos, CA this week for a couple days. Any recommendations for winery visits, restaurants, etc in the land of the Sideways movie?

Fortunately, I haven't yet noticed the Kit Taste that some have experienced. I'm at the point where I want to start tweaking my kits to get that extra 10% out of them and have read with interest the discussions about swapping out the kit manufacturer supplied yeast with another that sounds like...

I just signed up for the WineMaker Magazine Conference in May :db http://winemakermag.com/1521-2016-conference This will be my first time attending and I'm excited about it. I've done a conference for other hobbies through the years and enjoyed them greatly. There's nothing like getting...

Hi, I've been in this hobby for a year and half. Up till now I've mostly bottled when the instructions said I could with the intent of drinking some early and letting others age a year or more in the bottle. After a sale at my local shop I now have enough carboys to leave 5...