Recent content by wertygrog

Hi all, quick update! Last Friday I picked up a hydrometer and measured the filtered wine at 1.01 gravity. At this time I put the grapes in a coarse mesh bag and squeezed it. Kept doing this until the wine was almost free of solids, then used my racking cane/tubing to siphon into a 1gal carboy...

Alrighty, going on 4 days in primary now! The first two days were extremely active and foamy/bubbly, now the visible activity has slowed down quite a bit. There is still a cap appearing which I punch down twice a day. The buckets are in my basement, and must temperature has been between 72-79F...

Hi everyone, update time! Last week I measured the Brix and it was coming up on 20. This week, I noticed a bunch of bees and figeater beetles starting to devour the grapes, so I decided to harvest them yesterday with the help of my 4yo daughter. Might have been a little early, but will check...

Hi there, making some progress! I purchased a 1-gal winemaking kit which came with the usual stuff (fermenter, glass carboy, bung, airlock, racking cane, chemicals/yeast) and also a refractometer and Star San. If this turns out to be too small I'll run to the local wine/brewing shop and get more...

Hi all, great info being shared. Most importantly, you gave me the confidence to try it out! You are right about number of clusters vs. vegetative growth vs. quality. I have too many clusters and not enough leaves on this vine for best quality, but I still might as well use them for practice...

Hi Paul, according to the landlord this grapevine started as a cutting that his mother smuggled back from Italy back in the '80's. Other than that, I have no idea. I tried comparing the leaf shape to images online but couldn't find an exact match. It was a total grapezilla when I moved in last...

Hi there, I have a large grapevine in my Long Beach California backyard that is yielding about 100 small clusters of purple wine grapes. I'd like to make wine with these grapes, even if the outcome will not be great, as a way to get introduced to the hobby and see if I enjoy it. Is this a bad...