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Prepping for cabin season and evenings on the dock. Challenge - our cabin is across the border in Canada (barely - lake access from the US and can throw a rock to hit the border). While we bring up as much as we can tax-free (2 bottles/person - the rest, basically 100% tax), I am thinking about...

Have a 6 month old batch of SP that I think I forgot to add sorbate, but am not sure. I back-sweetened it lightly (didn't not measure SG post-sugar) several months ago and while I never saw active re-start of fermentation, taste and SG indicate that it is basically dry. I left it in a carboy...

I am nervously starting the barrel journey with a fresh-dumped, 5 gal barrel from Midwest. Plenty of wine waiting to rotate through and top off, but nervous about ruining good wine instead of making it better. I still have a couple of first timer questions after reading as much as I can find. In...

I recently put new silicon bungs on 3 carboys, all wines over 1 year of age. Normal cleaning and sanitizing of bungs prior to use, wines had fresh dose of k-meta at the time the new bungs were inserted. After 3 months, two of the carboys had developed a layer of gunk or foam in the neck of the...

A bit belated (life happens) - thought I would share this fun gift I received over the holidays from my DIL. Knowing I give a lot of wine away, she presented me a (large) batch of canvas wine bags with my wine label on them.

Lovely surprise this weekend. Made a 1 gallon batch of rhubarb wine using @GreginND recipe over a year ago. Had frozen excess rhubarb from a very sentimental patch and hubby was reminiscing about rhubarb wine at hunting camp (maybe not a well-finessed recipe). I do remember adding some frozen...

Question - how long can I delay before racking and adding kmeta/sorbate to Skeeter Pee? Situation - teaching a friend the basics of wine-making with a batch of Skeeter Pee (and also a FWK). All work is being done in my basement. The plan is for her to come back on Saturday for next steps (first...

I would be surprised if this hasn't been discussed before, but it appears my search terms are lacking - any advice on shipping wine across the country? Packaging? Risks? Our kids may have moved far away, but they are still hoping for a few bottles from the "family cellar" (which is a gross...

Just finished canning the annual batch of Cowboy Candy (candied jalapeños) - even with lots of ventilation, it is a 'powerful' event. Right up there with Kmeta fumes, although it sticks around longer in the house. And smells a lot better.

There are a number of previous threads I could probably append this to. Just christened a carboy with the label: "life is too short to drink crappy wine." 18+ month Chilean Zin juice bucket. Over the years, I have made many enjoyable wines, and more and more "pretty darn good" wines (thanks to...

Tale of two juice buckets: I fermented two Chilean juice buckets this spring - a syrah and a zin. Both were co-inoculated with BM 4x4 and CH16 (from same packet) a couple of days later. Additives were the same for both - FT Rouge, Opti Red, Fermaid K 1/3 way through fermentation). They have...

Will be starting 2 Chilean juice buckets later this week and intend to co-inoculate with MLB. I have a LE20 kit (grenache/tannat/shiraz) in process that would normally be sitting in the same area as the new buckets. Is there significant risk of accidental inoculation of the kit with MLB? Do I...

A woman with two watches... I have been using a Tilt (wireless hydrometer/thermometer) in addition to my regular hydrometer for awhile now. I quickly figured out that the Tilt's accuracy becomes iffy as the fermentation gets close to finishing - below 1.010, I rely on my hydrometer. So my habit...

Started the WE SLM today - added water to 6 gal mark (BMB) per instructions, then added grape skins. OG about an hour after grape skins added was only 1.080, which seems quite low. Haven't pitched yeast yet. Bummed that I should have checked OG before adding all the water as I hate to...

Just completed first-time MLF - on a cab juice bucket (OG 1.096; co-inoculated BM 4x4, CH16 24 hours later - used fermentation tannins, lallezyme, Opti-Red, Acting's-ML and Opti-Malo plus on schedule (Brehm's additive pack). Fermented dry (0.995) relatively quickly and left untouched as MLF...

Starting a thread as suggested in another conversation - curious how many women winemakers there are on this forum? I have always considered it pretty gender neutral, yet it has been noted that there is a heavy male bias here. How many of us are out there? Are there topics of interest? Different...

I am picking up a frozen juice bucket (cabernet sauvignon) this week and planning on trying MLF for the first time. Have been through many threads here and appreciate all the good advice I have found. My plan is to use BM4x4 and CH16, co-inculated with appropriate nutrients, as well as some...

Recognizing this question has a huge element of personal preference involved, I am curious which varietals you think produce the best wine when starting from a juice bucket and the tweaks you use on them. COVID wine-making has me eyeing the juice bucket pre-orders as something to play with this...

Last Christmas, I took several cases of a 1 year old merlot/carmenere to Texas in preparation for my son's April wedding. Stored in a part of my mother's house that is neither heated nor air-conditioned unless there are visitors (there aren't). Figured I was okay for Jan - Apr. Fast forward -...

I started two gallons of hard cider back in Sept - cider was from a local orchard, pasteurized for retail sale (no sorbate or other additives other than citric acid). One with QA23 yeast, OG boosted to 1.070 with brown sugar (also added pectic enzyme, yeast nutrient) Second gallon used S-04...