Recent content by malweth

It has to be CO2. It was oversaturated then you agitated the solution. Just adding sugar wouldn't cause the fizz. The 1/4 cup of sugar (with or without yeast) would only be a blip on the alcohol content (in 4L, approx SG 1.000 --> 1.005).

You'll never find 100% cranberry juice... unless it's some natural supplement (in very small, expensive quantities). Cranberries are very acidic and bitter. I would forgo these juices and look into getting fresh cranberries in season (Fall).

I started my #2 (Skeeter Pee... because of all the hype) and I managed to break off the tip of my floating thermometer. (I don't think I'll be using one of these again - at least not a glass one). There's steel shot and glass in the must now. (No red alcohol, luckily). This seems to be really...

We have a mostly finished basement that is a kids play area, so it's also tight. I use the basement bathroom as my work area. It's a hardly ever used, extra 3/4 bath. The space there is tight, but that also means it's a good place for fermentation (keeping it at 70+ isn't hard to do). The best...

BJ's (in RI) Sugar 10 lb $6.59 RealLemon Lemon Juice 96 oz $5.39 Guess what I'm making for my #2...

Zinfandel is a red grape. White zin is (or was originally) made by removing some of the juice from a red zin batch before the skins were removed (resulting in a darker red zin) ... thus the pink color. While white zin is sweet, it wasn't always a sweet wine and was originally the result of a...

Ordered this on 11/11 and it came today (in perfect condition)! Maybe I was lucky, but the box wasn't marked fragile and it wasn't packed all that well. It came in a big amazon box with crumpled paper inside and another box "Made In Italy" containing the carboy.

Before dinner I had a Harpoon UFO White and a whiskey. During dinner it was a glass of Castello Di Gabbiano Chianti. (That was over a number of hours, though)!

Are the lid's seals water tight? It seems like you could use a hole in the lid with a spigot and just turn the bucket on its side or upsidedown for bottling. That way you can forget about a hole in the side. Aren't we all turning water into wine?

Gooseberry and Currant are both of the ribes genus. The ribes are a critical species in the 5 stage fungus White Pine Blister Rust, responsible for the destruction of many pine trees since the 1920s. An infected white pine can infect a currant or gooseberry plant up to around 300 miles away...

Black currant is allowed in your area? I bought three gooseberry bushes a couple of years ago and had to destroy them... didn't realize they were illegal without a permit (and I figured with the white pine nearby a permit might still be a bad idea).

Thanks! I measured without crushing, figuring I could always add more (can't un-add, after all). I did crush it (with the k-meta), then dissolved it into a small amount of warm water... added wine to mix, then added all the wine. Crushing the sorbate doesn't break it in any way?

I've already added 4 tsp of sorbate to my wine when racking off the secondary (it was at 0.996-0.997 for a while). I also added about 1/4 + 1/8 tsp K-meta. (This was at 8.5 gallons before racking). The sorbate looks like white jimmies (like you'd put on ice cream). A tsp of the sorbate out of...

First racking... just stabilized it and added the f-pack yesterday. F-pack was a half gallon of juice reduced down to just over 1 cup. Ending S.G. is 1.002 (from the sugar in the juice, I guess... 256 g sugar into 7 gallons). I'll probably have a better picture when I back light the wine...

What's the average S.G. of a table wine? Is a commercial "dry" wine really under 1.000?