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I noticed that when I bottled the first half. I think I'll give it a week or two more with the 2.5 oz. oak chips and bottle.

Medium toast, I'd guess. I bought the chips from Brewmaster's Warehouse with some beer supplies.

You definitely need the 6g carboy for aging and the 7.9g fermenter. That should be enough. Your beer equipment will meet the rest of your needs. My advice is to go with the more expensive (i.e., more and better juice) kit. I've made beer for years and just last year started making kit...

I made Winexpert's Sonoma Dry Creek Valley Chardonnay. I bottled 3g of it as directed and transferred the rest to a 3g carboy with 2 oz. of toasted American oak chips (boiled for 3 minutes in a muslin bag and submerged with several glass marbles). I check it's level of "oakiness" every week...

My main concern. I typically transfer a little sediment when bottling my homebrew, but beer can easily mask any slight off-flavors from sediment. Not so sure about Chard. Thanks.

Thanks, Wade, and your're welcome (I found that link from searching the Beginner's Forum for "re-bottle"). As I was typing my query, I decided to pick up the filter. Lesson learned.

I recently bottled a WE Estate Sonoma Dry Creek Valley Chardonnay. Rookie mistake: when racking to my bottling bucket, I picked up a little sediment, which made it into each bottle. The wine was (and is, but for the sediment) crystal clear. Should I transfer the bottled wine back to the...

Thanks, all. I picked up the Select Dry Creek Valley this afternoon. Plus I got a good deal on it from my homebrew shop: $130 (everyplace else wanted $145). Sweet! Should I use the yeast package that comes with it? It wasn't refrigerated, which causes me a little concern. I'm thinking...

Thanks, MN. I'm probably going with one of the Selection options (I think they are larger volumes of juice). I've been bulk aging the Old Vine Zin since December; hoping for some time to bottle this week. I took a sample this weekend to check the gravity and flavor and its pretty good...

I'd like to make a versatile California Chardonnay. I'm considering a few more expensive kits and one cheaper. I'm looking at a few Selection Estate kits: the Sonoma Dry Creek Valley and the Small Lot British Columbia. The Sonoma Dry Creek Valley is unoaked. The (much) cheaper kit I'm...

I sampled the wine after degassing and it seemed marginally sweeter than when I racked it several days prior. Will that trend continue in the bottle? I'm reconsidering sweetening the wine.

Great advice. Simple syrup, as in 2 parts sugar to 1 part water? I have dextrose (corn sugar) and regular table sugar.

The instructions to the CC Old Vine Zinfandel I'm making indicate that I can add "wine conditioner" just before bottling if I prefer a sweeter wine. I tend to like zins a little sweet, so I'm considering it. What is wine conditioner? Any tips on its use?

Update: I checked the gravity last night and it was just under 1.000. Amazing to see such progress over only two days; it even tasted better (still pretty harsh, though). Racked to the carboy, topped up with some bottled Zinfandel, and airlocked. This morning, the airlock was bubbling away...

Will a brewbelt help much with a plastic fermenter? Is there anything I can do in the interim, maybe pitch more yeast? Airlock activity is nil at this point.

Thanks. I suspect fermentation is a little slow because it doesn't get above 68 degrees.

I have an Cellar Craft Old Vine Zin in the primary now, on at its 8th day. The SG is at 1.010. The instructions direct to rack when the gravity is down to 1.000. I don't want to rack it too soon, but I don't want off-flavors from being too long in the primary. Should I rack it now or wait a...

I'm making a Cellar Craft Old Vine Zinfandel 12L (with grapeskins). The instructions direct to either stir 2x daily or weigh down the grapeskins (in a muslin bag) to keep them wet. Because I'm lazy and don't want to risk infection, I don't really want to stir the mix. What can I use to hold the...

I'm looking for a corker to bottle no more than two batches (<60 bottles) per year. I see most forum members lean toward preferring floor models. However, finewines.com, which many WMT members rave about, "highly" recommends a portugese double lever corker...

Sounds like I need both a 8g bucket primary and a 6g carboy secondary (maybe a Better Bottle) to avoid roadblocking my beer production. If I could recruit my 6.5g carboy as a primary, I could find a 6g carboy for a secondary. If fermenting wine produces beer-like krausen, then that probably...