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I have made 20 gallons of blackberry wine from berries I picked from domestic berries I grow in my yard. The first 10 gallons which are already in carboys taste fine. The last 10 gallons I made which are still in the primary buckets have a very strong bitter taste. This year I strayed from...

Have a carboy of grape/cherry/elderberry going and this morning woke to fine the fine lees off the bottom had floated to surface, and gotten into the air lock, filling it and overflowing. Fermentation is still going on, had racked it at 1.02 from primary into carboy. I used my wine pump vac...

Hello all. Have been making wine now for about 3-4 years. No kits, just going by what I'd read and dumb luck :D. I have now reached a point I'd like to improve my wine. I have never taken a ph level for acid, but plan on starting. I pick my berries when they are at a point of ripeness just...

Hi. Have a question about elderberries in wine from more experienced wine makers. My last batch of wine I started was from the last of my grapes and was not enough for a whole batch, so added a can of black cherry puree and got the must going. About 5 days into the fermentation a friend...

I made a pear wine last year and all the bottles developed a cloudy slime on the bottom. the wine is carbonated and has a funky flavor; not like vinegar, but not good either. kinda earthy. my question is can these bottles be sanitized and used again? the airlock was knocked off the carboy...

hi all. I have made 2-5 gallon batches of lt. bodied wine and have 3-5 gallon primaries of full bodied. no press, so mashed grapes well and put in primaries with no water added to the full flavor batches. needless to say, have a very thick head of skins, seeds, to remove which will leave me...

am 5 days post op of rotator cuff repair, so a bit handicapped. have harvested and destemmed 162# of my grapes so far. I have 2 - 5 gallon primary buckets going to which I have 18 # pureed grapes, 8# sugar, nutrient Kmeta, 2 tbls pectic enzyme and ec-1118 yeast. I do not have a press, thus...

Has anyone ever done this and how did it turn out? This is the first year I had grapes of my own to make into wine, froze them, thawed and crushed with my hands and a new paint mixer and drill. Ended up with 2- 5 gallon primarys of juice, which is now converted to wine. The trouble is that...

Tonite I was crushing my first batch of grapes for my first batch of 'real' homemade wine. I had bought potassium metabisulfate in the powder form to add, as the campden tablets always left chunks. The salesperson had written 1/4 tsp per gallon on the bottle. I had crushed about 7 gallon and...

This year I harvested approx. 89 pounds of purple grapes from my vines. Quite surprised actually as I had black spot and started spraying them early on. Figured I'd loose the whole lot of them, but came out better than expected. Of course I washed them well with plenty of fresh water and...

I noted in my bottled wine some sediment, so have decided I need to purchase a filter. The two I am considering is the Buon Vino mini-jet and the cheaper hand crank Vinbrite MK III. I am aware the best solution is to let the wine set in carboys for a year, but that just doesn't happen. I have...

Besides the obvious issue of the bottle breaking, are there any other issues with shipping a bottle of wine 1000 miles? Will the trip and the no doubt rough handling shake the bottle up and ruin the wine? I figure bubble wrap would be the cheapest and best packing material. Anyone else...

Hi all, I am getting some experience under my belt now with wine, and have started venturing into flavor combinations and was thinking of a blueberry/lemon wine. Does anyone have a recipe for 5 gallons of this blend, or can you give me some tips on using lemon in a blend? Thank you in...

Hi, Due to the drought this year, my little vineyard will not bear enough grapes to make even 5 gallons of wine. I have called the local vineyards and they said they will not be selling grapes this year due to the reduced harvest. So, I figure I'll just buy some Welchs grape juice to fill...

Hello, I have some vines, and the last few years near the end of the season I've noticed the leaves are folded in half, held together by a web, and a worm between the folds. Also, I believe some of the leaves have been munched on. What can I do about this without possible contamination to...

I started a new batch of wine using one #10 can of peach concentrate, 8# sugar, then filled with white grape juice to make 5 gallon in the primary. I added 5 tsp. of yeast nutrient and 5 tsp. of acid blend. I also added 5 camden tabs. Waited 2 days, then added one packet of yeast. It bubbled...

Will be bottling 15 gallons of fruit wine that has been bulk aging for 4 monthes now. I purchased 75 new bottles and have a few questions. I have read in posts that some people use the dishwasher to clean thier bottles prior to bottling. My dishwasher has an anit-bacterial wash button, a hi...

I have two 5 gallon carboys of wine aging and it has been in the carboys since October. It was in the primary for about 2 weeks. There are still a very small amount of tiny bubbles coming up in the carboys, looks just like the videos I've watched on YouTube of the Malic Acid conversion taking...

I fermented my blackberry wine for approx. 3 weeks, then racked on Oct. 19th and let the fermentation subside until there were very few tiny bubbles rising within the glass carboy. I racked today (Nov. 22nd), degassed in the new carboy, added 5 crushed campden tabs, and topped off with welches...