Recent content by texasermd

Here's a pic of the Raspberry Port. Only about 500 more bottles to go...

Well,it's been a long haul but I finally got all of the wine bottled. Over the last year and a half, I have kept most of the wine I started with and gave away quite a bit as well. I picked up an Enolmatic single head bottle filler and, in 8 hours, my son and I bottled about 500 bottles. They've...

All the reds are just doing their thing...aging. The whites have gone through 3 weeks of cold stabilization (after bentonite protein stabilization) in the adjustable freezer @ 26F (the last batch is almost done) I have had some blind taste tests of some of my reds (@ 4 months of age) vs some...

Luckily, I went crazy when I got started and bought a pallet of 80 5-gallons. I'm only using about 40 of them right now.

Wine conditioner contains a sweetening agent and potassium sorbate. If you want a wine that has some residual sweetness to it (not dry) then you may use the conditioner. It is best to run some small trials to see how much sweetness will meet your needs. The sorbate in the conditioner keeps any...

I have 80 5 gallon and 20 3 gallon carboys in all but only about 40 or so in use right now. I think that qualifies near the insane end of the spectrum.

I have used an entire 680 gm container of raisins in a ice-wine type wine I have been experimenting with and when I stopped the fermentation, I used a large sterilized fish net to remove the raisins, placed them in a mesh bag and squeezed them as hard as I could by hand to get every last bit of...

The yeast was Red Star Cote des Blancs which I chose for its recommended use in fruit and residual sugar wines. I will definitely start a thread on my progress at some point. Also, check out the article regarding another take on ice wine and note the recipe at the end...

(Caution: long winded rant) Well, I guess I am from the paranoid camp of yeast management. I have used 2 supplemental products in my wine making so far: Go-Ferm and Fermaid K. Go-Ferm is basically micro nutrients to get the yeast hydrated and off to a healthy start. You can read about it...

You could always get a clinitest kit and test the wine to see if there is any residual sugar as a secondary means to determine if fermentation is complete.

abv stands for alcohol by volume and is usually written as %abv or percent alcohol by volume. You will see the label on wine or other spirit that states 12% abv. Also, multiply by 2 and you have proof and vice-versa.

Thanks to everyone. I'm replying to this post from the ER, actually. Hey, who does my schedule anyway?? Had a great birthday, though. And, strangely enough, I received a few bottle of wine that SOMEONE ELSE MADE! Now that's relaxing. I'll have to try some of it out tomorrow when I actually do...

I appear to be an outlyer with 200+ gallons going right now, though with racking losses, I should hit the legal limit of 200 gallons. Also, the year is nearly over so it seems like a good time to plan for next year.....

That sounds like a good plan. I actually have about 200 gallons going now. Cost wise, that would seem like a better deal than what I got for the juice. I figure that 80 lugs would net about 200 gallons of juice. I will have to look into this for next year.

Thanks for the great links! I would like to see more viticulture and enology lectures offered online.