Recent content by tonyportale

Hello, I live in PA. I cannot find any suppliers for this kit. Can anyone help? thank you.

Hello, I have been making wine from kits for years. I want to move to sterile juice and give that a try. I have no experience with this method. Does the finished wine taste better coming from sterile juice vs kits? I'm not ready to jump to frozen must wine making yet. Thank you in advance for...

Sorry for confusion, the wine in the 1/2 gallon jug was from the same racking that was done in stage 3. The entire 6 gals. was transferred back into a fermentation bucket to help release the CO2 easier during de-gassing. Then the juice was racked back into an oversized 6gal carboy to be...

Is this picture showing the stage in your process where the wine is now sitting for the recommended 28 - 35 days....final racking before bottling?

NO, no not doing that. I had 1/2 gallon of wine left over from the first racking that I saved for topping off. When I was done siphoning out of the main carboy, I poured some of the wine from the 1/2 jug into the new carboy to bring the level of the wine up to the neck of the carboy.

Hello, Just racked (step 4) my Eclipse Cab into carboy to sit for the next 28 - 30 days. As I was racking I could see that the color was not a deep burgundy but more of a deep mahogany. It was easy to see as it hit the white funnel. The taste was still 'young'. Is the color at this stage not...

I just check the contents. The yeast is Red Star Primere Cuvee. I could not find a date on the package. If I'm going to get a fresh package, is there something better to buy? Thank you

Thank you, Can you recommend a good yeast replacement?

Hello, I've had this WE Island Mist, Sangria / Zinf. Blush kit for a few years now. 0611412 0208 Do you think it is still O.K. to make? Is yeast still within acceptable shelf life? Thank you

I normally bulk age in smaller carboys for approx. 3 months, then I bottle. I reduce down to (2) - 3 gal. or (1) - 3 gal. and a couple of 1 gal. jugs. So you are saying that I should top off my 6 gal. carboy before heading out? Thank you

Thank you for the info I apologize for not being more specific. These new kits say 'no topping off'. I'm still racking using 6 gal. carboys (which in reality are 6.5 gal) and the top surface of the wine is just at the point in the carboy that starts curving up towards the neck. Is that two much...

Hello, I have an WE Eclipse Chilean Malbec / Shiraz kit ready to go to step 3, clarification / racking. That 'step' is supposed to last approx. 8 days before going to step 4 - bottling. I have to go out of town and won't be back in time to perform step 4 after 8 days. The wine will be sitting in...

Hello All, It has been awhile since I've been on this site. Was out of the wine making loop for about a year. I just started two new Eclipse kits. I'm in step #2. When I read that "no topping off" in the instructions I thought my eyesight was off. I read all of these responses and sort of...