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Hello. I have a carboy of cranberry I made from juice a couple years ago. Testing the pH I'm finding it a bit low-acid (pH 4.0) and probably should be tweaked. 1) What's a good target pH for cranberry wine? 2) Should I use acid blend or tartaric acid?

I'm wondering 1) is it possible, and then 2) if so, what adapters do I need? I'm trying to refill something like this: ...from something like this: I already have the big tank, but I'd like the convenience of the small one upstairs from where the large tank is stored.

Me chatting online w/ my dad a few moments ago... Me: "I often see people say that winemaking is a "chemistry set for adults" Dad: "same with beer" "in fact, there are some 'beer making courses' that include chemistry as a topic" Me: "except with beer you're working with explosives." (side...

Hey, all. Quick question: I have a kit I recently started (9/3). I prepped the yeast with Go-Ferm Protect before adding. It took about 2 days for the fermentation to really pick up (maybe old yeast) but it's going strong now. I also wanted to use Fermaid-O but I misundertood what "lag phase"...

Hello, friends. Haven't posted here in a long while due to some personal emergencies, life changes and basically my life being totally up-ended. Not in a good way. While my passion for wine hasn't been lost, many significant things have. Forced to sell my home, I lost the 40+ vine vineyard I...

I'm conflicted about how to "label" my bottles made from kit wines. Removing all those commercial labels first time around was such a PITA, I'd rather reduce my work. But labeled bottles are so pretty. I'm curious what others do? Do the kit wine labels tend to come off easier than commercial...

Approaching year 3 of my vines. How time flies! The weather seems to warrant doing pruning this weekend. One question that's been nagging me that I haven't seen clarified in any books or websites I've read.... I know the general guideline is to "prune anything thinner than a pencil", but does...

Recently I noticed that the ends of a number of my vines that had looked very healthy and were growing vigorously have suddenly browned and shriveled. And it's only the tips. Ideas?

So this year I started over trying to establish my trunks (planted last year). Some of my vines are only putting up 1 new cane :( while others are starting 4 or more. I'm trying to train 2 trunks per vine. For the ones with more than 2, should I pick the two best ones then prune off all the...

This is only on maybe 1 or 2 of my vines, but looks concerning.

This is my first spring having the vines already in the ground (planted last year). I did a dormant pruning earlier this year. I'm wondering at what point I should start to see new growth? If all my vines died over winter I'd prefer to know sooner rather than later... I'm located in Vermont...

So I'm still getting to know my Morewinemaking SO2 kit. I've run about 4 tests so far on different batches. I've also stocked up on extra chemicals, although the only extras I've had to dip into so far is the phosphoric acid (25%). I have concerns about the aeration time and how it affects...

So the vines I have I just planted last season. So from what I hear, we're about at the time to do the first dormant pruning. As a newbie, I confess I'm pretty paranoid about screwing this up. Growth varied from just a foot or to to several, but nothing quite made the top cordon wire so from...

So I often have a problem when using my 6 gal fermenting buckets for wine kits with skins. The extra volume added by the skins often causes overflow to blow into the airlock (or even onto the top of the lid). I've read that a 7.9 gal pail should be used for kits with skins (by a company selling...

So I'm approaching the point where I need to think about bottle storage. I have an unfinished basement that is cool and humidity-controlled. I'm eyeing those simple, inexpensive wood storage racks like this design (144 bottles): https://st.hzcdn.com/simgs/a501ffb709de55de_4-3551/home-design.jpg...

I am wondering just how degassed the wine needs to be before adding keiselsol. I'm doing a kit and I'm degassing with an AIO Wine Pump. I'm finding that after many minutes/rounds I can still get pretty vigorous bubbling if I let the pump run for a bit. Does this mean I have more degassing to do...

So I have 4 carboys bulk aging at the moment. The oldest is from last April. My understanding about the general rule of adding 1/4 tsp K-meta every 3 months is to control oxygen/oxidation. Presumably because people are re-racking every 3 months to potentially introduce new oxygen into things...

So I have a very small vineyard. 42 vines, 2 rows. So really only a single "middle" row. Right now it's just grass. My intention is to torch down a swath down each row killing what's there, then covering with weed-block fabric. So that'll eliminate a bit of competition down each row. But I'm...

So the Japanese beetles got away from me and have entirely defoliated 7 of my 42 new vines planted this year, while only 2' or less tall. A number of other vines are hanging on by a thread, with a few leaves. I'm wondering: if a new vine is hit that hard with all its leaves destroyed so young...

So I have 6 gallons of raspberry wine that I started bulk aging on 5/1. This represents my first attempt at making wine NOT from a kit, but just using raw ingredients. Today I ran some tests: pH: 3.9 TA: 7.5 g/L SO2: 46.4 ppm From the charts I've seen, I'm a bit low on SO2 (should be between...