Search results

I started like you, 35 years ago. I quit the sanitizing about 30 years ago. I just rinse in cold tap water, carboys, hoses, spoons. I still use meta-water on my bottling procedure, as I have a squirter on top my bottle tree. Works fine. I bottle 40-60 gallons of wine annually.

Blueberry is usually hard to start. It contains a chemical used to halt fermentation. I read that you should not add Camden tables or metabisulfite prior to fermentation. Sometimes it helps to dilute must with water 10 or 20% and restart yeast.

That will sure work, but I prefer not to soak in soap.

Some of them simply peel off in one piece, no soaking required. Others, (most) require a soak under water, no SOAP!, and a fingernail or paring knife scraping. Finish with a Chore Girl cleanup of the glue. You can use a little dish soap on the OUTSIDE.

Been making wine 30 years, about 150 gallons a year.. most bottled dry, a few semi or sweet for neophyte friends. Musician friends and self drink it all. Make colorful labels on computer. Have 15 Norton vines and 300 blackberry vines in backyard. I buy many pounds of grapes at area...

Put tap water with a pinch of meta and a couple drops of red food coloring so you can see the fluid. Dp

No soap in bottle!

I just brought 7 carboys back inside, from my patio where I was chilling it all winter, to precipitate excess acid. The grape is all I take out. 17 other carboys stay in the basement. I blended 20% elderberry to 10 gallons of Concord on my bench. Now 12 gallons. I printes color labels for...

Same thing happens with my floor corker. Sometimes the cork is too soft, and the pressure in the bottle slides it up. Severa; soloutions: 1- insert corks in cool water a few seconds before using, to "set" the outer cork, but leave the center soft and compressable, 2- get a small wire, I use...

For topping off, I use a 2lb sugar to 1 gallon water soloution, with 1/8 teaspoon meta to retard spoilage. This is 1.090 on the hydrometer, same as my starting must, for 13% alcohol. It usually ferments out to dry, in the 2 years in the carboy, before bottling.

After the corking, you leave the bottles upright for the corks to dry, about 4 or 5 days, i suppose. Then, use a rubber mallet to drive the raised corks flush. They will stay.

I have read that adding gelatin increases body. I don't have gelatin handy, so I buy Jello packets, and get both added flavor AND body, mixing with the wine, of course, not water.

The Norton turns out good. Most of it I blend with 5 to 33% Elderberry, as elderberry is so strong tasting, and I think it improves the taste of the Norton. I'm down to 5% this year, as I could hardly find any e-berries.

I am fermenting 25 carboys, and 6 gallon jugs. Got a buy on ripe peaches, about 50 gallons are peach, 25 are nectarine, 25 are Norton grape, 5 blueberry, some elderberry, and I forgot what else. Been wine making since 1988, when I joined SWIG, a club in Mensa. I had 90 cases bottlen in my...