Recent content by Brub58

Where are you based? My wine guild had their allocation cut back due to storm damage around Mildura before Christmas. We ended up getting a mix of Sagrantino, Malbec, and Nero D'avola to make up the numbers. I got the Sagrantino and it went in the barrel at the weekend. I'm still waiting for...

Oz is Oztraylia, also called Australia, also called Straya. Pip - I'm in the Eltham guild. They meet on the last Friday of the month at the Eltham Learning Centre at 7:45 for an 8:00pm start. Several of us are collecting grapes this week that one of the members has brought back from Mildura -...

If you want help with fruit wine, join the Eltham or Frankston wine guilds. Both groups are very knowledgable and welcoming.

I've had much the same problem and I think it leaks at the seal where the lid joins the body. Make sure the filter is as far in as you can get it and then screw the lid on really tightly. I get a good seal if I don't put a filter in the body of the unit so I think the filters are a tight fit...

I hope so John. On the original topic, I am really looking forward to 2017 vintage. I moved house (downsized) in 2015 and with selling the old house and fixing up the new unit I didn't make wine that year. This year I thought I would and had grapes ordered, but we had a hot summer and...

I've been thinking about it for months. Grapes are ordered and confirmed - 150kg Canaiolo, 80kg Vermentino, and 80kg Riesling. The Canaiolo should be ready late Jan or early Feb and the whites in March. Plus I got an early Christmas press-ent yesterday. The shop had a 10%off sale last week...

The original post is over 5 years old. Probably more useful to refer to the current question.

If your TA is only 5g/l I'd think twice before reducing it. That's not very high.

Helped out at my wine guilds annual wine show yesterday. There were 690 bottles of wine and I couldn't taste one of them - judges only! Today was the public day, but I had a family lunch so couldn't make it.

I get the HCl from the LHBS. I titrate against 10ml of the standard. If it takes 10 ml of NaOH I'm good to go. http://www.anpros.com.au/laboratory-reagents/hydrochloric-acid-0-100m/

Why would refrigerating it make a difference? It degrades due to exposure to CO2 (in the air), not heat. So, no, I don't. But I do test it against a HCl standard every time I use it.

An enolmatic is an Italian allinone. Don't know why you couldn't find it - it's even available from Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0064OIJUO/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

An enolmatic comes with fitting specifically for racking into demijohns. I wouldn't pull a vacuum on a sealed demijohn, but vacuum racking should be fine. I've got about 8 demijohns and use the enolmatic for all my racking.

Use frozen water in plastic bottles. Keep rotating them through the freezer as they melt.

If you open up the additional information tab it says 'very recommended' for co-inoculation.