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jmack

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Greetings and Salutations! My name is Jeremy, and I hope to become a regular here. I've been browsing the forum for about 2 weeks now, and tried to register a few days ago. I've been trying to complete the registration, but could never recieve the confirmation email. I must apologize to George, I sent him an email asking for help, but never recieved a reply! So I tried everything I could possibly think of to fix the situation, and was about to call his shop, when I decided to check my blocked email addresses. Lo and behold, there I saw George's email addy. Man I was shocked! So anyways, here I am... Quasi-equipmentless, and no wines started (hopefully to change very soon), and with a whole host of questions.
 
Welcome jmack.


I'm glad you persisted and showed patience. That is lesson number one with making wine-Patience. Tell us a little about yourself and what kind of wine you like to drink. We can then help you make decisions as to what wines would be good for you. Give George a call and he can set you up with the proper equipement kit to start with- depending on your budget and expectations. We are here to help you. Just remember as you learn, help others.
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Welcome jmack. Glad to have you onboard and it appears you have the right qualifications to become a great winemaker.......Patience and Persistence
 
Thanks for the welcome appleman. I've actually been wanting to get into winemaking for a few years now. I've read volumes on the subject, but I've always just put the desire to start on the backburner. Finding this forum has really jumpstarted my appetite, and I am really excited about actually getting into it. I'm really a novice wine drinker. I've sampled just about every beer known to man, but wine really intrigues me. Especially homemade wines. I'm also very intrested in mead. It seems so... ancient. Not sure if that is the term I'm looking for, but it's such anold, romanticiseddrink, and I've never tried it. I live in a dry county, and the nearest liquor stores only carry a limited selection of wines. I'm a bit of a brute myself, and being so, am terribly unrefined.I do love Red Zinfandel, and Rhine, but my experience with wine doesn't go much deeper than that. I'm really looking forward to making fruit wines though, I think that is probably my main intrest in winemaking.
 
Welcome, jmack! We're glad you decided to join us and stuck with it. That is what it takes to make wine! Find your way to a bigger city with a bigger selection of wines. See if there's a wine bar available. You can get flights (group of small samples) of wine and try out several without getting slammered. When we went to a wine bar we had no qualms about taking notes. Even if you make notes of, "Liked it, didn't like it" it will still be a good starting point. A lot of wine friendly liquor stores also carry small bottles lesser priced commercial wines. Get some of those and have your own wine bar in your kitchen. Take notes. If you can figure out what you do and don't like about the wines, all the better. Someone around here will be able to help you find an equivilent kit to a commercial wine.
We look forward to hearing from you again.
 
Welcome Jeremy, I hope you stay and ferment some wines with us. We can help you through just about anything you run into with all the various experienced wine makers we have here. I agree with PWP to drink a few commercial wines and find 1 that you really would like to do. Id like you to ferment a kit before starting a mead but if you must you can do the Ancient Orange Mead as thats fairly easy.
 
I had actually planed on doing the Ancient Orange Mead as my first. I have a couple gallon jugs, so I figured that I'd start small, and work my way up. A kit would require me to get a large primary and at least a pair of 5 gal carboys. We're in an apartment right now, and I don't think my wife would appreciate all the space I'd need to store said items. Plus we have a fairlyrecent addition of twins, and we plan on getting a house after Christmas. I doubt the move would be good for a young wine in carboys.
 
You will need a 6 gallon carboy and 1 will work. All these kit wines make 6 gallons.
 
jmack,
Glad you got my email. Email blockers can be good and bad.


If you need any help with the proper equipment, give me a call. I will do my best to fit your budget and space.


If fresh fruit is your passion, then I strongly urge you to take advantage of the knowledge on this forum. I can help you get started, but the forum members have a lot more experience with fresh fruit than I do. My "speciality" is with the wine kits. They are so easy and foolproof that even I can make them as they are already adjusted for sugar, acid and pH. You will find that making a sound country wine will depend on the quality of the fruit, balancing the sugar, acid and pH and exhibiting patience.


Welcome aboard. When you come to Big D, be sure to stop in.
 
Hi Jeremy,
Welcome aboard you have come to a great place to start your new hobby. I saw you are interested in fruit wines and meads. We have quite a few people here who are very knowledgeable of fresh fruit wines. The
gallon jugs you have will work great starting out especially for the fruit wines. The hardest thing you will have to deal with starting out is the desire to drink your wines young. Consider buying a kit wine to start at the same time. A great one to start out might be one out of the Island Mis
collection. These are light ,fruity wines that will be simular in some ways to your fresh fruit wines. The Island Mist can be drank after aging just three
months. The taste pretty good young but taste better as they get closer to a year or more. They are pretty inexpensive and make alot of wine. You can sip on this while you let your fresh fruit wine age closer toa year. If yo
drink these young they will have a yeast flavor to them. The yeast flavor dsisappears closer to a year. Start out with an inexperience starter kit with George. Here is a good web site for recipe's http://winemaking.jackkeller.net The starter kit you will user over and over again. Not an expensive hobby to start and very rewarding. Here is another good starter wine. Welch's Niagra Frozen Concertrate Wine
2 cans Welch's 100% frozen grape concentrate
1 1/4 # granular sugar
2 tsp. acid blend
1 tsp pectic enzyme
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1 gal water
1 pkt. Montrachet wine yeast
sugar to raise s.g. to 1.095
This is an inexpensive and quite tastey wine. You can substitute any of the flavors of Welchs Frozen concentrates and achieve simular results.
 

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