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Bottled my first mead today. It's already not bad, maybe a tiny bit harsh, with a verrrrrry slight odd odor. Maybe I didn't sanitize enough, or maybe that's how mead smells (I'm new to mead). But generally I'm pretty happy. Will be interesting to see how it matures. If it improves, I'll try...

I suppose this post would apply to wine also (yeah, I know, mead is just honey wine) but I'm making mead this time, so there's no fruit lees involved. The forum has a lot of advice on primary-to-secondary, but it's quite widely varied. I have a few questions about which I can't seem to find...

My first-ever batch of mead seems to be going well so far. It's a simple mead - nothing but 2-3/4 lb of honey plus water to reach 1.1 gallons, and the various nutrients and a bit of lemon juice and acid blend to get it down to pH 3.6, plus a bit of tannin powder. Initial SG was 1.100, Brix...

I'm making mead for the first time, time, and a lot of pages recommend fairly vigorous shaking or stirring until it gets below a certain SG and the yeast switch from multiplying to conversion of sugars to alcohol. When people use the phrase "yeast colony," that implies to me a specific location...

I'm trying my first simple mead, and I ended up with about a pint more than my gallon carboy could hold. Later, when racking and some of my must is inevitably lost to the lees, I hate topping off with some other liquid (some other wine, water, etc.). I want the entirety of my batch to be what...

Not really a question - just exulting in something going right - 3 bottles of a really pretty rosé or blush wine. I only harvested about 3/4 gal of grapes from my single front yard vine this year - that sounds tiny, but (a) it doubled last year's take, because I learned how to prune properly...

I think I just made some persimmon jello. I'm trying my first batch of wild persimmon wine. This is maybe my eighth or so winemaking attempt so far, all fairly small batches, and most have been reasonably successful. So I'm not TOTALLY a newbie - but close. I mashed all the extremely-ripe...

Bottom line questions: Should I be worried about a super-fast fermentation (just over 2 days to 0.988 SG)? How fast should I move to secondary? Two days ago I pitched Red Star Premier Classique yeast into a gallon of mashed grape must freshly picked from my front yard vine (after the usual...

I wanted something that would be easy to remove later, and I found this water-soluble label stock on Amazon. It dissolves in almost no time, including ALL the glue. It takes maybe 20 seconds under running hot water to have a completely clean bottle, and all the "paper" and glue literally...

Here's introducing myself! I grew up wishing that someday I'd inherit that beautiful big 5-gallon handblown green-glass carboy wrapped in wicker sitting on Grandma's hearth, and I finally got it. Years later, I finally decided to actually start using it, so in 2022 I bought all the gear I'd...