Recent content by Vertumnus

Thank you for your reply, WVMJ. I figured that might be the case. I do use Star San for sanitizing, but I usually only apply that before I would use the equipment. Do you recommend applying Star San before storing equipment after an oxyclean soak? Enclosed is a picture of our "fermenting...

Hi there, I recently had a 6 gallon batch of black tea kombucha that I bottled with the racking cane, siphon pump, and tubes that I usually use for winemaking. It was only afterwards that I realized that the vinegary component of kombucha might leave a residue that would forever doom any future...

I've been looking at upgrading to a 20 or 32 gallon primary fermenter. I've heard that one should only use HDPE2 or PET, but I'm pretty sure most of the Brute cans that are usually used for larger home winemaking are LDPE. I know that that level is considered food grade, but is it good enough...

I'm supposed to go to a wedding next month in Arizona (I'm in WA) and now that the wedding party heard of my wine-making, they're eager for me to bring down a couple cases. I was planning on my blackberry/banana/mango DB. Anyways, I need to know the logistics/legality/etc. of bringing homemade...

If you're referring to regular dish soap, I think the reasoning is that it's not as good as oxy clean in removing dug in stains from inside carboys and other equipment without scrubbing. It also is quite tedious to rinse out and there's a possibility of residue left over that you won't see, but...

Speaking to the water-less airlocks, I'm using them almost exclusively when I can. The silicone makes it much easier to fit it into the carboy, even when a little wet. Not having to deal with overturned airlocks or fruit flies floating in there and possibly contaminating the wine far outweighs...

I made a thread asking this very question. http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/f5/cups-lbs-sugar-sg-ratio-45325/ If you want the tl;dr version, someone responded by saying that 1 cup of sugar will raise the specific gravity of one gallon of water by 0.018

I wouldn't recommend putting the wine back into the plastic container as the acids and alcohol of the wine can leach hazardous compounds from the plastic if it's not of the correct food grade. I believe that's why one shouldn't use 5 gallon water jugs as opposed to Better Bottles.

If you want creative, I have tried wrapping my primary in emergency blankets in order to reflect the heat both from the outside coming in and to have the heat of the fermentation reflected back into the must (this was in May in western WA, where it's cool). It was somewhat effective, but I don't...

So it's summer time in western Washington and that means it's Himalayan blackberry season. Just from around various parks and trails in Seattle, I've been able to harvest 9lbs which is sitting in the freezer. My first question is how much kmeta will I need to apply when its thawing? I'm...

And maybe it's overkill, but here's his article from his blog specifically on cocoa powder (http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/wineblog19.asp): "If you have shopped for cocoa powder in any sizeable supermarket, you probably know there are choices. But if your choices are between Baker's...

I think Jack Keller has a recipe for strawberry chocolate featured on his requested recipes page: http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/request.asp "Strawberry-Chocolate Wine 4 pounds sliced ripe strawberries (frozen sliced have best ripeness) 4 oz Dutched cocoa powder 11.5-oz can Welch's 100%...

It's my understanding from oenology class that most wineries undertake to sparge out their tanks with nitrogen/CO2 to provide the very protective blanket you say is not possible, but you may be right in that it's possible that it may be different for smaller containers because of the natural law...

I'm with mwhitnell, the only thing you can do without topping up or moving to smaller containers is to flush out the oxygen with CO2 or nitrogen.

:u So I thought I should give you guys an update on how things are going with the carrot wine. I finally racked it on 07/15 after two months just sitting there in the carboy. Ended up not doing the flavor pack. After consulting my notes, I realized one big thing I missed which was probably...