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Ok, something very strange is going on that I just can't explain. I made a batch of Tinkleberry Tropical (a type of quad berry skeeter) pitching the yeast on August 9th. After fermentation, stabilization, clearing and backsweetening to 1.006 I bottled it on September 2nd. It was tart but...

Finally got around to testing the acidity on this stuff after racking using my awesome new All In One Wine Pump. It was .8% tartaric (5.12ppt Sulfuric). That's REALLY acidic. No wonder I always feel like this stuff has a bite to it. From my understanding it should be around .65 Tartaric (4.2...

I picked up these 2 carboys from a guy on craiglist for $5 each but I'm not exactly sure how to use them. Do you think they are the equivalent of a Better Bottle and can be used as a secondary for clearing? Do you think they could be used for aging (a few months, not years)?

I'm interested in filtering my wine. It seems I always end up with some amount of sediment left when racking and eventually end up with a small amount of sediment in half of my bottles. So, I'd obviously prefer a crystal clear and polished looking wine so friends and family can ooo and aaahhh...

I see topics like this coming up alot so I might as well post my own. Anyone know of places in the North Texas area where I can get fresh grape juice? I don't have a press so I'm reluctant to buy grapes in bulk but I'd love to try my hand at some real wine grape juice.

I've been debating making the Chocolate Strawberry Port from the recipes section as it sounds yummy. Before I jump right in, I figured I need to find out what a port tastes like. So I went to the local liquor store the other day and bought Chocolate Shop Cream de Cocoa (from the port section)...

I met up with a friend of mine the other day who graciously offered me 13 pounds of a concord/mustang grape hybrid he had growing in his vineyard. I removed the stems, placed in 1 gallon freezer bags and set them in the freezer (to aid in breaking them down). Now I have made beer, cider...

Curious about what mead tastes like, I picked up a bottle of this from my local liquor store (Goody Goody). This is the one and only mead I have ever had so I have no idea if its good or not. It pretty much tastes like what I would expect fermented honey to taste like and I don't like it. I...

I've made quite a few batches now but two things have been bothering me that I'd like to get clarification on. Normally my process is to ferment till below 1.010, then rack to secondary carboy. From there I ferment dry, then rack again to carboy onto pot sorbate and kmeta. I then add...

So, I attended a going away party for a coworker last night and took several bottles of my homemade goodness. Unfortunately we didn't get around to opening my Hard Apple Cider as I was really curious about getting opinions on that. But anyway, here's what I took over that was actually tasted...

I'm considering making the following Orchard Breezen kits as FVW has them on sale this month. Has anyone tried them? If so, can you give me your opinion? Blueberry Shiraz Green Apple Gewürztraminer Raspberry White Zin Sangria with Seville Orange

I've searched the forums and google and haven't found a clear answer for this. Obviously it is possible to bottle wine in beer bottles but will it last that way? Or rather, how long can wine last in a beer bottle with a crown cap? The reason I ask is that I have approx 1200 beer bottles of...

As someone that loves drinking cheap grocery store wine, making Skeeter Pee and fermenting frozen juice concentrate, I obviously understand very little about what makes a wine "good" or of "high quality". To me, if it tastes good, its good. So I'm really curious as to what makes a wine...

I recently met up with a guy in my area that was giving away his beer bottle collection of 600+ bottles. While I initially just expected a bunch of great home brew bottles, I've found some very interesting items in his collection. I had no idea beer came in so many forms! So anyway, 2/3 of...

I've read plenty of threads describing various flavor experiments everyone has tried. Some are helpful, some don't have enough info and all of them usually contain just 1 flavor. So this thread is going to be about my experiments in Skeeter Pee flavorings, the results of each and how they...

I'm interested in trying a kit but have no idea where to start as there are so many available. I've only made 1 kit before and it was a Chablis Blush. This time I was thinking of making something more like a Riunite Lambrusco as that's my default cooking and table wine. It has some body, is...

So I finished a batch of skeeter pee and a batch of quad berry pee over the past few weeks. Both are good but a bit tart so I'm going to let them age a bit (1 week is considered a bit right? ;) :dg) So anyway, I started 2 more batches of pee last night. One will be all lemon, then...

I finally got around to finishing off the labels and getting some shrink wraps on the wine's I've made so far this year. I bottled one of each in clear bottles so I could do color comparisons and I have to say, I'm loving that I did that. Here is a pic of all of them side by side. Sweet...

So I started a batch of Hard Apple Cider and Welch's Grape Wine on the same day. Here I am after all the racking, SG checking, stabilizing, etc. 5 days ago I added sparkolloid to the cider and bentonite to the Welch's. The cider is clearing (although not nearly as fast as I would like). I...