Recent content by Micah

I didn't use any filtering but you'll definitely want to hit with super clear or something similar. My first batch sat there looking like grapefruit juice for weeks until I added super clear. After about 48 hours most of the solids had dropped out and it started to actually look like wine.

I'm honestly not sure what pectolase is. I did add pectic enzyme to the batch which isn't called for in the recipe but might be the same thing. Googling for pectolase gives the following answer: So it may in fact be the same thing with two different names.

Can't answer the first question but both times I have made this I added the yeast directly to the mixture after it had cooled a bit and it took off like a rocket. I have a 6 gallon batch going now that has been fermenting strongly for almost 2 weeks now.

It's been absurdly warm in Utah. Normally by now we've got our winter snow cover but even the mountains are bare. I've started getting the seed catalogs and like every year, I'm marking something on nearly every page. I'm a terrible gardener but I certainly like to give them my money!

I reracked my wine and then added Super Kleen over the weekend. Holy cow. Within a few hours it went from looking like grape fruit juice to actually looking like wine. I'd been waiting with little to nothing happening and then *blamo*. That really is amazing stuff.

My first 3 batches of wine were from kits and I'll probably do quite a few more kits in the future. It was a nice intro because I had 0 clue on what I was doing and having step by step instructions really made the process easier. They also helped to ease the learning curve because I was able...

Good stuff Jim. Just along the lines of what I was thinking and then some.

Great tutorial on how to read the hydrometer. If possible I would expand a bit on it and talk about what the hydrometer is measuring, why it's important and how to calculate final alcohol content from the numbers that have been collected during the process. From my own anecdotal...

That's actually a good question - is there any reason not to bottle wine in beer bottles? Individual serving for the on the go wine lover!

This was probably one of the harder things for me to figure out as a new guy to the hobby. I'd take a reading and mark it down but have no idea what it was telling me.

Appreciate the pointers. I've done 3 batches of "6 week" wine kits before this and it looks like I mistakenly made the assumption that this would have a similar time frame. I don't want to derail this too much further but I'll see if I can track down a discussion on the 3 p's you mentioned.

Thanks for the info (and welcome). I actually just picked up a vacuum pump off eBay and a whole house filter based on recommendations from here. Considering the amount of dissolved solids in this wine, what sized filter did you use? I'm waiting on delivery of 1 and 5 micron filters but I...

Quick question - I was inspired to try this recipe as my first non-kit wine. When I racked to start the clearing stage I found the wine looks like grapefruit juice in both color and clarity (or lack there of). During the clearing stage, what should I be looking for to know it has cleared...