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I have recently change my living conditions and do not have the luxury of bulk aging in my basement which was about a constant 60 degrees. Now my wine is sitting upstairs and seeing outside temps pretty much. The upside of this, from reading on this site is the warmer temps will help the gas...

I am posting some plans I had made up and built. Made these racks for future moving. The first one I made, the spacing was a little large so on next rack I squeezed down to make the whole rack smaller for the same amount of bottles. One was made for .75l bottles the next had one row for 1.5l...

I have ordered 6 gal of Cab juice and it will be in this Wednesday. The yeast has already been pitched I've been told and I have 24 hours to pick up. The message was they were frozen and would be available starting at noon. Here is the hitch, I expected this last Saturday and have a trip set up...

At home when I try to get on this site a window pops up and asks me for my name and e-mail so they can send me e-mails about sales and promotions, does not happen at work, unless I give the info I cannot get onto WMT. Is it my computer problem at home? The request is from a brew supply house...

This spring I am quitting my job, selling my first house and moving to my second home in the UP of Michigan which is going to give me more time to work with my vines. The bulk of them were planted 3 & 4 years ago, 36 plants dry rooted. Last year I was not able to water the vines as much as was...

I need help with this, please. Started to notice this on one vine and now am seeing on multiple Marquettes. Does not seem to be affecting the Frontenacs yet but would like to address before catastrophe. New 36 vine planting over the past two years in the U.P of Michigan. The problem is it's 200...

Went out today to pick berries for the first time in 6 days due to the hot temps here in Mn. and found that most of the berries that had ripened in the missed days had pretty much dried up, need rain bad. There are still a lot of green berries on the brambles but with out rain it may be a bust...

Thought I would put two better bottles out on the deck to dry out faster, after cleaning, on a 97 deg day instead of leaving for almost two days in the basement. It was a good idea but I left them too long without checking and now the bottoms look like a record (vinyl lp) left in a car on a hot...

Would a crusher de-stemmer work on cranberries? I currently use my press for cranberries and find it to be a big job. I'm thinking that a crusher might help to break the berries open and I could put them right into the mesh bag and then hand press them when they are fermenting to get the juice...

Picked up 55# of cranberries at the marsh in Stone Lake for a buck a pound two weeks ago. Pressed 23# and have a 6 gallon batch just starting ferment tonight. My first 1118 starter must not have been going well enough last night when I pitched so made another tonight and added some must to it...

Picked Elderberry for the first time at my neighbors and got only 5# after cleaning. I know fresh may be best but for the time and effort put in, it was too much hassle for me compared to Vintners 96 oz can. So now I'm debating how to bring these two together. Should I make a batch with the...

First, thank you to Grapeman for the beginning to end thread going. I'm looking forward to more and loving what I'm seeing. I have a small planting going in comparison, 18 vines, 6 Marquettes, 6 St Croix, 6 Catawbas. *** 24 but messed up on ordering and the Frontenacs were sold out already...

Just picked up 4 potted Marquette vines and had placed them in the front flower bed temporarily till I traveled to the U.P. to plant them. Sure enough last night I was sitting in the living room and looked out the bay window at them and thought they looked different. On further examination found...

Opened a bottle of the first blackberry wine I had made and found it to be very good after two years. It seems to have smoothed out and the blackberry taste has improved. I was a little concerned with the corks due to what I have learned on this forum and at my supply house. Thought maybe it...

I have been very busy with an emergency in my household. My wife has been closet drinking booze for some time now and in complete denial about it till yesterday. On Monday at work I received a call from the chiropractor that they were calling an ambulance to have my wife transported to the...

I know it's going to be an issue in the logistics but I have around 8 gallon jugs I am getting rid of and would rather share these than put them in the recycling bin. I have been getting so many 1.5L bottles from a local bar restaurant that I am changing over to these for skeeter pee storage and...

Thought I would rack my 5 gal. into a 6 gal. and add back in the remaining slurry pee I put in the fridge, after it had cleared, along with the frozen concentrate. I had planned on adding 4 cans of concentrate and topping up with some Old Orchard red raspberry juice. I added in 3 cans of...

Moving some bottles around in my rack and found a bottle from 1.5 yr ago had some wine outside the cork (leakage). I opened the bottle of raspberry and when trying to remove the cork found it was spinning when I got the screw less than halfway in, pulled it out slightly and held on to the cork...

Bottled up a blend of 11# cranberry, 11.5# blackberry, & 7.5# rasp. Backsweetened to 1.005 with simple sugar syrup and thought it was pretty decent, not dry and not to sweet, somewhat neutral. Taste was good to me and was surprised when my better half sampled and said she thought it was the...

First batch of elderberry from VH 96 oz. juice can. Ferment went well without the goo in primary that has been spoken about on this site. Now I am noticing the goo on the ribs of my better bottle. I did read that using veg oil will clean this from the primary how about from internal ribs of a...