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Hi everyone, I have a fairly urgent question. I have a small (5L) batch of Peach and Nectarine Melomel. It is my first melomel apart from JAO. I am really happy with the flavour. I added 1 Campden tablet and 1/2 teaspoon sorbate - after racking and let sit for 2 weeks. I did...

I have noticed that some recipes call for using Campden tablets (without using sorbate) and then leaving for a period of time prior to bottling. This is only for wines not requiring backsweetening (in which sorbate would also be used to stabilise). Is this necessary? Perhaps designed to aid...

I had made a few batches of this Strong Ginger Beer (or sparkling wine). OG is about 1.070 so 9.5% potential. It is nice and easy to make but it think the flavour needs a bit of improvement. The recipe is: 4 teaspoons citric acid 2 teaspoons cream of tartar 3.5kg of sugar – depending on level...

Am currently on to my second attempt at skeeter pee. Bot using freshly squeezed lemon juice. During the first batch, I found 2 fruit flies dead in my air lock. I took it out, washed it and sterilised it. I didn't think much more about it other than it seemed like it was taking quite a while...

Hi all, I like to make fresh vege/fruit juice mixtures for breakfast. I usually use beetroot, apple, ginger, celery, carrot. I throw out the pulp as I live in an apartment so no compost/chickens. I was emptying the pulp container in to the bin the other day and thought about the...

Hi everyone, I would really appreciate some feedback on making fruit wines in general. I have just started getting into this hobby and so far have made some mead (JAO, peach and sparkling gingermead) and a few fruit wines that are aging (banana, plum, orange). The issue I...

Hi again, So I decided to check my plum wine today and after 2.5 days the specific gravity is 1.010. I decided I had no choice but to rack it. Unfortunately it has been very hot here that last couple of days - 30 degree Celsius (86 f) which may explain the rapid fermentation. I am...

Hi everyone, This is one of my first real fruit wines from scratch so sorry for the noob questions, but i;m a bit anxious about it. On the weekend I put down a batch of plum wine. 103lbs of plums. It is in 3 x 5 gallon primaries. I only had to add about 2 gallons of water to...

Hi guys, I have a general question regarding the process of reusing yeast. I have read what I could find on the forums and there seems to be a few different techniques to this - the most simplest seems to be adding the new must straight on top of the previous yeast cake. I have a...

Hi everyone, I have an old and basic recipe for ginger beer that I can say from experience works very well, despite it's simplicity. Takes a good couple of years to really shine though. At Christmas, my cousin found a bottle in his shed that was 20 years old!! We chilled it down...

Hi everyone, I'm about to bottle my sparkling gingermead with plums. Charlie Papazian recommends using 3/4 cup of corn sugar per 19L. I take it that there is a bit of room to move here as volume does not seem a very accurate way of measuring a powder. I also see that some...

Hi everyone, Looking for a different yeast to use for meads and melomels and also fruit wines. I am living in a climate where maximum temps are over 25 degrees for a lot of the year. This pretty much means that ICV-D47 is not a good yeast for me what what I understand. So i'm...

Hi everyone, I put a batch of Charlie's Barkshack Gingermead down 1 week ago. Followed the recipe except didn't boil the honey (couldn't bring myself to do it!) and I added 1.5mg of black plums and 1 tsp pectin enzyme and left it for 24 hours before pitching the yeast. I used...

Hi everyone, I've managed to pick up 2 full size demijohns (54L). They have stored outside by the looks of it and have dirt and mould inside. What is the best thing to clean really dirty demijohns - warm bleach and a nylon scourer on the end of a piece of dowel?

Hi, I have a knowledge of pH adjustment and starting with the correct sg, but I notice a lot of recipes call for a small amount of tannin. How important is this to the final flavour, and does it matter what the source of it is (some being sold online state that they are chestnut derived)?

Hi, I'm still learning the basics here. I have just put down a barkshack gingermead with 1.5kg of black plums in it. I have been reading about the importance of pH in wines in general, particularly fruit wines. The info I read for fruit wines states that the pH should be between 3.3 and...

Hi everyone. My first post but have been reading for a while. I'm primarily interested in making fruit wines. The appeal is in experimenting and making something that might surprise people when they taste it. So far I have made a Joes Ancient Orange Mead and an Orange wine...