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Questions about adding glycerin... #1-- We have a good shiraz ready to bottle. It's good as it is but has anyone filled one bottle and added just a touch of glycerin to see how it would improve it? Is there any way that adding 1/4 cup of glycerin to the 6-gallon carboy could turn a good wine...

Wow! Thanks! There's an interesting Italian Valpolicella grape kit for $42. We might try that! Those are really good prices! We've never made a kit that doesn't have everything in it to stabilize, etc. The instructions say you need to add sugar. I would have no idea how much to add. What did you do?

How much would you use? A pound of grapes for a 6-gallon batch? Could I do something similar with fresh cooked pear chunks? I assume the cooked fruit goes into a cheesecloth. Do I need to add anything else like pectin or something with it into the primary?

Funny you should post this response...I was just researching that topic! I found some food grade glycerine on Amazon. I think it's a great idea to try! Thanks!

Here are our results from tweaking our ABC Crafted Chardonnay... We purchased from Amazon for $45 for a 23 liter kit. --In the primary: We followed the instructions but we added 1 tablespoon fresh grapefruit zest (in a bit of cheesecloth) and 8 chopped up dried apricots (in cheesecloth). I did...

I got great info from the tweaking cheap kits thread!

We haven't bottled our shiraz but it's in the carboy and we tasted it--I'd say it's pretty good--better than if we hadn't tweaked it. We had put 6 oz. of dried tart cherries and 6 oz. dried sweet cherries into the primary. (We boiled the cherries together for a few minutes to reconstitute them...

Regarding "best wine kit of america" on Amazon...I haven't tried it but I can't even find it on Amazon. Can you post the exact link? I'm curious to look into it. We are currently making two cheap Fontana kits we got on Amazon and I'm looking into buying another cheap kit by a different company...

"Move it?" You mean move it into the carboy (secondary) what ever the specific gravity is? "Oak any time" but "do one step at a time"? That's sounds contradictory. So, we should to the clarifier step first, and two weeks later do step 2 to add oak, correct?

Two quick questions about when to do the following: NOTE: Currently cherries have been in the primary bucket 2 weeks. Our initial specific gravity reading was a little low--it was 1.07 and it should be 1.08-1.1. We plan to remove cherries and move it into the secondary (carboy) tomorrow...Do...

My bag of LD Carlson chips are tiny chips. Do you put the chips in a cheese clothe or something? Do they all drop down to the bottom of the carboy so it's easy to re-rack??

I'm adding dried sweet cherries to a red wine kit. I have read on this board to how to add this but I'm not sure if it's complete-- --Rinse dried cherries (8 oz.) in hot water and then cold water to remove any sulfites. --Soak them overnight in cold water and then chop them into smaller pieces...

Joeswine--We got some dried tart and dried sweet cherries. If we use those, can we just put them loose in the bottom of the bucket (primary)? If we use fresh black berries, should we cook them first or just put them loose fresh in the bottom of the bucket? Any thoughts about the idea of...

We are starting a new kit--Fontana Shirza. I'd like some suggestions to tweaking it. We will be making it in 6-gallon carboy because we just don't want to invest in 5-gallon equipment just yet. We purchased both French medium toast oak chips and American oak chips. Not sure which would be...

Last night friends had a bottle of pinot noir and a bottle of domaine du sac from a Wisconsin winery. To me the pinot was quite nice but didn't have a distinctive aroma/flavor and it was light in fruit. However, the domaine du sac had a very distinctive aroma of leather and smoke, and it was...

I would like to know how you tweak the $55 merlot to give it more body/taste. I've never made any kit except by the directions that come with the kit. I've been reading about raisins, zest, peppercorns, bananas but still don't have the knowledge to risk it yet. I'm all about getting the most...

Newbie to this forum! I did a Google search for Fontana wine kits because at the moment there are not many Fontana selections on Amazon, and in the shopping section of Google, Wine Lovers came up with a bunch of kits around $50. I searched this forum but didn't find any info about this company...