Recent content by DeerValley

Any suggestions on whether to add more yeast?

I don't have the yeast with me but it was a Dry Red Wine yeast. The St Croix sounds like it is still slowly fermenting but not much and not sure why it is taking so long for the SG to come down. Should I add more yeast? Or Add water and Yeast?

The Marquette was still 1.020 so hasn't come down at all for several days. The St. Croix was 1.035 so coming down very slow.

I would say my must volume is around 20 gallons. For whatever reason all of that sugar only got my Brix to the 21 or 22 range. I have continued stirring both every day. I am going to check the SG tonight of both. I assume the Marquette is done so I will transfer to carboy.

As for the Marquette. I was reading a different thread and it sounds like bitterness is pretty common at the beginning and should get better after it is racked a few times. Hoping that is the case. It smells like wine at least. Sunday I will probably try pressing it into carboys.

For the St Croix the Brix was around 20 when I added the Campden. I had to leave town and so it was 48 hours from the time I added the Campden tablets and the Brix had dropped a ways. I ended up added around 7 pounds of sugar dissolved in hot water. That got my Brix to around 20. So I...

My second soon to be likely problem is 170 pounds of St Croix I started fermenting on Sunday. It was at 1.040 two days ago. It's issue was I couldn't get the Brix up past 21 or so. It has a lot more fizzing and activity than my Marquette. I wasn't able to test its PH or acid either. Any...

Running into an issue. Been busy as hell and the acid test kit didn't come in time. So 8 days ago i started fermenting 160 pounds of Marquette. It was at 24 Brix. Long story short is it doesn't seem to be going doing any more and is around 1.005 right now. I had my wife taste it and she...

Thanks! I will give it a read this weekend

That is what I was wondering. So I should press the grapes and throw all the skins back in with the juice for the fermentation?

Thanks. I was thinking 160 pounds of grapes would be good for 40 gallons or so. That would leave 10 gallon of space. Would you guys recommend using my "new" home made juice presser first and then putting them in the barrel and adding the skins. Or just put the whole grapes in the barrel for...

I had very few skins in it last year. I boiled the grapes and used a strainer to extract the juice. So only a handful of skins and some seeds mixed in. This year I will do the skins with the grapes. My question is once I am down to the .990 range do I need to get them in the carboy or can...

Thanks for the information! I don't even drink. I am making it for my wife and people who help us pick. Last year I let the wine ferment for 6 days on the Marquette. It was around .990 SG. So you are saying I could have left it in there for another week or so and it wouldn't have gone any...

Yes Marquette and St. Croix.

That was my thoughts. As for the vanilla, i figured it wouldn't be hard to soak it in oxyclean for a day and than disinfect with campden tablets. Last year I pressed the grapes and strained the juice so I had very few skins in the must. It seems like many on here advocate doing the...