Recent content by chicken

We have plenty of carboys to spare, so it might be worth experimenting. I guess we'll see how I feel about it this fall.

Yes, source is the same. On the one hand, I've been very happy with how the juice bucket chardonnay has come out, so why mess with success? On the other hand, it could be interesting to be in control of the whole process from grape to glass.

Crushing and pressing our own juice, instead of starting with juice from a juice bucket.

I have made Chardonnay from juice buckets, and been very pleased with the results. Tried it for the first time in fall 2019, did MLF and added oak spirals. Fall 2020 I decided to experiment, and did one bucket with MLF and oak, but no MLF or oak in the second. Same yeast (ICV D47), same...

How does it taste?

It was 42 lbs of muscat, 72 lbs zinfandel. I don't know how that proportion was decided upon (maybe upon the advice of the guy we bought our wine press from?). We also did a batch with 120 lbs with just zinfandel, and a couple of "false wines." That was our first year making wine. We were...

Great thread! I'm inspired to try something like this myself next fall. Looking back through our wine log, I see that we made something we called "zincatel", a mixture of muscat and zinfandel, back in 1988. Frustratingly, our notes are rather incomplete, so I have no idea how well it came out!

No worries. You can use it or kieselsol and chitosan later, or even use nothing at all if you like. Until last year's chardonnay (first white wine I've made), I had never used any kind of fining agents at all. We let our reds bulk age for about a year before bottling, and rack 2-3 times during...

Once you've got a good pipeline going, it gets easier to give the wine plenty of time before bottling, and before drinking. We typically bottle our red wines a year or so after they were pressed. And then try to leave them for a year before drinking. They can be drunk earlier, but I've noticed...

I've never had that problem.

That can happen with a vigorous fermentation. You can use a blow off hose for awhile until it calms down (fit a siphon hose into the bung instead of an airlock, and put the other end of the hose into a container of kmeta or star san).

I got Portuguese floor corker last year, and cannot believe I waited so long. Even though I usually only bottle 2-4 cases at a time, it was well worth it.

Not really an option this time, since the point was to put only part of the batch through MLF. MLB was added after pressing, to only one carboy. If I was putting the entire batch through MLF, I would consider co-inoculating.

I was too lazy to go out and get a bottle of cab franc, so I went ahead and topped up with non-MLF, and used lysozyme for peace of mind I am happy to report that the wine that went through MLF is decidedly less sharp, and seems to have a fuller taste and mouthfeel. Perhaps this will convince...

Thanks. I'd like to use wine from the same pressing, since that's what's at hand (I have an extra 750ml bottle of non MLF left over after a recent racking). Just wasn't sure how much I should worry about MLF restarting later.