Recent content by gsorrells

I have used the same fencing for my vineyard and no raccoons breached my mesh fence. Go to an irrigation supply company and buy a roll (1000’) of irrigation tape. It’s perforated every 12-18”. Then run it just outside your mesh fencing. Hook it up to a water supply with a pressure reducer (sold...

Absolutely you can use it for sanitizing. Assuming moisture has not entered, it’s still good. Generally potassium is preferred over sodium metabisulfite to stabilize wines. We bottle our wines at 30-40ppm sulfite, fyi.

Sound advice. We own a small commercial winery. We store yeast in a fridge and discard it and buy new for the next vintage (1 year). Rinse with clean water several times after cleaning/sanitizing. Do you clean and sanitize your hoses and pumps? Lots of wineries find out that they don’t clean...

You have received sound advise. We have a small commercial winery. Adding back sugar after your primary fermentation will (in most cases) cause fermentation to restart and bulge corks - unless you use sorbate. And, yes, it takes a .45 micron filter to filter the yeast out - using a cartridge...

Gross lees is generally defined as all the lees at the bottom of your tank at the end of primary fermentation. Measure the specific gravity to determine when you have achieved dryness. Then rack. It looks like mud. The wine will still throw off some lees but it’s ok to age or keep the wine in...

You would have to have extremely high SO2 levels before they would interfere with taste. We bottle around 25-40ppm and that generally protects our wines for 5-7 years, at least. I believe that 300-350 is the legal maximum (in the US), but I have never seen any wines that high. Even then, you...

Once it’s wine, there’s really very little you can or should do. Your numbers are good. We adjust the pH before fermentation to 3.65 (if we can). Adjusting pH afterwards generally makes the wine angular. You CANNOT taste pH. I would just adjust your sulfite to 30-40ppm and bottle it. The...