Recent content by cheesegod99

The wine was Chianti and definitely needs some ageing - so hopefully I'll be able to keep my hands off for a few months! Thank you all for the suggestions on the labels and caps - I think I might pick up one of those crafty heat guns (and keep it stealthily hidden from my RA). I still need...

Alright finally bottled it today using the bucket with the spigot - ended up leaving quite a bit in the carboy as I didn't want to suck up any sediment - but I still ended up with 27 bottles with enough left over to have a few glasses. Oh and this might sound like a dumb question - but...

ok so I did step 3 yesterday - stabilizing and clearing. I used the wine whip degasser that came with the kit on a power drill so I'm hoping it was stirred enough. There didn't seem to be too much foam. There is already a pretty thick-looking layer of sediment on the bottom of the carboy. My...

Oddly enough my SG is already at about .992 after only about 3-4 days in the secondary. I hope I didn't do something wrong...

Alright -a little update- I guess my kit is a little on the fast side because the SG is already just over 1.010 - at least when I checked this morning. I'm going to rack it to my carboy tonight, which I just cleaned with easy clean and is currently soaking with a bit of K-meta solution. The...

Unfortunately my digital camera has recently crapped out on me, so pics are a no go at least for a while. Even so my room is full of the wonderful smell of fermentation. My airlock started to bubble less than 12 hours after I put the whole thing together, and in one day the SG went from...

Yes, I got the Basic Vintner's Reserve kit with a Chianti as my first go. I also picked up the "compact" bottle drainer tree and some bottle shrink wrappers. I actually just started the primary fermentation today, and other than a small leak from the spigot (which I finally wrestled under...

Thank you so much for all the great input - I can't believe how helpful everyone has been. I think to start off with I'm just going to get the basic kit and the compact bottle drainer - I'll see how I do and then upgrade once I have some more experience. Also, I found a great professor who's...

If I only get one carboy, what do I rack into from that? Do I rack back into the primary and then back into the carboy? Thanks again for all your great suggestions so far! Oh and my room is absolutely not air conditioned - although I'm in Central NY, the weather can still get above 90...

Thanks for the tips so far... my only concern with the extra carboy and the bottle draining tree is the space - how much room do they take up? As I said, I'm in a college dorm, so space is a bit on the limited side...

Hey there! I've been looking to get into winemaking for a few months now, and I finally joined this site because it seems the most customer friendly - and I think I'm finally ready to start purchasing equipment to get started. I want to start off with a vintner's reserve chianti, but I am...