Recent content by LenniePike

On my very first wine I ever made, 5g blackberry, I had that smell. Bought a 24 inch, small diameter piece of copper pipe at home depot for a few bucks and when I racked into the secondary I ran the wine through the pipe while splash racking into carboy. Not sure if it was the copper or not but...

Quick update...Added 5 tsp of yeast nutrient and kept heat around 78 degrees. The EC1118 finally kicked in and all is well. Didn't know about using more yeast for a restart or about competitive strains...going to have to read up on that. Also I always try to rack most of the the yeast to the...

Real quick. Made 5g welches white grape (awesome white wine recipe) added all the usual ingredients. Starting SG 1085, must temp. low 70's, used lalvin D47 like the recipe called for (usually use lalvin 71b). Everything was going fine until I transferred into secondary at SG 1010 and then...

Some store bought juice and concentrates already have kmeta in the ingredients. This could be why you had a hard ferment start. When I use juice or concentrates for wine I usually don't add kmeta until the secondary.

Blackberries, strawberries, bluberries and apples :-)

OK...Thanks for the info.

Thanks for the info rocky. Would the 12L kits with grape pac be comparable to store bought wine in the 8-10$ Price range? And would the 15L kits be more like 12-15$? Just tryin' to get a handle on the difference in kits.

I know its not that much more money but I was under the impression that the 15L kits needed a year minimum for drinkability. If the ageing is the same for "small" kits and the larger kits I will order the 15L. Could both of these size kits be good to drink in the 6-9 month range? Thanks for the...

I guess I'm putting in an order :-)

Thanks for the quick reply. That was on my "list" also.

Have previoulsy only made fruit wines but wanted to try a kit. This would be for my wife and she likes reds. I was thinking about either the CC merlot california reserve or possibly RJS chilien malbec. Both are 12L kits both have a grape pac, similar in body and oak ratings and are about the...

I degassed but probably not enough. SInce that batch I've bought a whip thing for the drill, but honestly I think using the spoon handle worked better. I know my apple had tons of gas and took me about a week to finally degas it. Would improper degassing cause a "geyser" or increase the chances...

I'm starting to think the problem was with the ksorbate, but my LHBS only carries it with no expiration date. I've read that it's only good for about 6 months. Does anyone know of a good source for "dated/use by" ksorbate. Could anything else have caused a referment? I'm new to wine making and...

Temp was 65-70 degrees and the sg of 1.000 held for over a month so I assumed it was finished fermenting. I had 2 bottles pop the cork and every bottle that I opened was very carbonated...geyser when I poured. I opened all of the surviving bottle and dumped back into a carboy, added a pinch of...

Made several 5 gallon batches of blackberry using Wade's recipe and two of the batches have refermented on me. Recipe and procedures were as follows: -34 # of berries split in two buckets, each bucket had: -1.5 tsp of pectic enzyme -1.5 tsp yeast nutrient -1/8 tsp of kmeta Sugar was added...