Recent content by bobofthenorth

I really don't know but I see no reason why it would be any different than wine in bottles. I've had long discussions about this with my oenophile sister-in-law. She and her husband introduced us to the wine shop we used on Vancouver Island, Valley Vines to Wines. She maintains that proper...

Its really a very practical solution. It definitely lacks the "snob" appeal of a well labelled bottle but from a practical standpoint its hard to beat. I still bottle some from my "good" (ie. non-skeeter) batches but I put a lot in bags too. We use the bottles for gifting and for the rare...

Since you asked ......... I racked it for the first time yesterday. As I wrote earlier, my wine room is a pretty consistent 62 degrees year round and this time I didn't add any supplemental heat. I left it on the skins for a full 2 weeks which was yesterday. I didn't check SG yet - I've got...

I make a low ABV Skeeter (8 or 9%) and backsweeten it with frozen lemonade. I really enjoy that with a bit of bubbles in it. Right now the keg is living in my porch which has been right around freezing for roughly the last month. Fridge space is going to be challenging as the days warm up but...

I couldn't answer your temperature question so I went and floated a thermometer in the must. I have always assumed there was some heat from fermentation but evidently in this case not enough to measure. The must and the room are both solidly at 62F. There's plenty of action going on. I'm...

I guess that's the theory. I'm skeptical that my palette is sophisticated enough to detect the difference. I never use the WE cloth baggie that they want me to put the skins in. I tried once and it turned into a gong show so now I just squeeze the bag of skins into the ferment pail and then...

We started making WE kits while we were living on our boat on Vancouver Island. There's a great little shop - Valley Vines to Wines - in Duncan where we made many wonderful batches of primarily Stag Leap Merlot and various ports. When we moved back on land I found a shop that will sell me WE...

I'm far from an expert but my white plonk carbonated just fine sitting on the bench in my wine room. I'm very pleased with my new toy BTW. Yesterday I remembered that I have a bunch of cider that I made a couple of years ago. I think it will be great next winter with a few bubbles in it. One...

Last summer we enjoyed having a gallon jug of white "plonk" in the fridge all the time. Usually that meant some variation of Skeeter Pee. I make several 5 gallon batches annually, ferment them to dry and then backsweeten in a variety of ways. Last year I backsweetened a batch using frozen...

I don't use a gauge. I use an AC vacuum pump that I bought off Amazon. I rack using vacuum and once I've done that there's not much CO2 left. Occasionally after racking I'll pull a vacuum on the new carboy but there's not much action left at that point. You do have to be careful when you...

Thank you. Its been a long LONG time since organic chemistry (and I hated every minute of it). I was labouring under the misconception that there is no oxygen in sugars. I don't think I'll change my procedure but I'll definitely alter my explanation.

I would describe what I do more as "whipping" than simply "stirring". Over the first 4 to 6 days while the must is active I stir vigorously at least once a day. There's a chemical reaction occurring. The yeast is converting C/H molecules (sugars) into O/H molecules (alcohols) and emitting waste...

I've seen confident pronouncements that one year old sorbate needs to be chucked. You're saying 10 years. Regardless, if there's no activity in the carboy there's no activity in the bottle. Procedure - not ingredients.

Not necessarily. Whatever it is I'm making it sits in a carboy under airlock for long enough for me to ensure there is no activity. Obviously a dry red is going to sit a lot longer than a batch of Skeeter Pee (which I always backsweeten) but if there's no activity there's no activity. I've got...

There's a limitless supply of nonsense accessible by a simple Google search.