18L kit with juice and grape skin pack, mesh bag along with 30g American oak cubes, KMS, Bentonite, Sorbate, two 150ml bags of chitosan, EC 1118 and RC 212.
Since I have two, here's my plan. I've got two Brehm OVZ Sonoma must buckets coming in next week, once pressed, I'll use the skins from each one of those buckets and add to each of the Fourtitudes, just to up the ante. One Fourtitude with RC 212, one with BM 4x4.
I would say it is likely that the yeast strain that ferments your Fourtitude kits will be whatever strain was in the Brehm bucket.... The RC212 and BM4x4 will get dominated, methinks.
Only 30 gr of American Oak cubes? That's it?? I'm a little surprised there's no oak chips for the primary.
Me too, but that's it............at least in the one that I've opened.
I had the same thought Paul, the Brehm buckets are not inoculated, and I'll be using the BM 4x4 on the Brehm must buckets. When the buckets are pressed, I'll divide the skins and freeze them for a short period of time. Then I'll start the two kits separately with the two different yeasts, thaw and add the skins in after the fermentation is moving along well. I'm hoping that the RC 212 kit yeast in full swing will dominate the previously frozen BM 4x4. One will be all BM 4x4 any way you look at it. Any problems with that, theoretically??
I'm kinda disappointed. Maybe tannin in with the skins and some additional American oak in the finish.
I'm kinda disappointed. Maybe tannin in with the skins and some additional American oak in the finish.
Maybe that Forza I bottled last weekend, bottle shock should be gone by now...........
If anyone needs help to decide to get this kit or not , here is the commercial equivalent suggested by Winexpert .
Shotfire Quartage 2012 from Australia .
I am getting this one .
Maybe the solution is not tweaking the kit. I actually have a belief that kit winemakers have a good idea of what they are doing, so for the most part, I just follow the instructions. I recently gave a foodie friend of mine a bottle of 2+ year old LE2012 Nebbiolo. He said it was as good as $30.00 wine he gets at the liquor store (Canada pricing though).Shotfire makes several excellent wines and this and the shiraz are their best. Personally, I cannot see a kit getting close to the flavor and body of this wine no matter how much you tweak the kit. Maybe I am not doing it right but have not had a kit wine that is close to a $25+ bottle of commercial wine.
Enter your email address to join: