i told George I would share this story, as its always fun to laugh about these things... Wednesday i got two wines in the mail
!!! i only have 1 fermenter, so the Corvino Creshendo goes in (the other waits by its side, i notice it has a moldy box
, so i change boxes, throw the other one out... take off for a couple days over the weekend to return home and check on my precious
... i find ants crawling around the floor, start checking for the source, and here there was a small leak in the juice kit siiting beside the fermentor... so i have to throw this juice out, since there were about 50 ant critters inside the bag
, this was very hard to do, in fact i could not pour it out, i had to put it back in the box and set it there for the trash man to take when i was sleeping early this morning (less painful)... so now i'm nervous that the ants without there favorite juice, might get into my fermentor of Corvino (i had a mesh filter held down by three coffee mugs to keep bugs out, but after seeing how the got in the juice, i'm not taking any chances)... so i go to put an airlock in the fermentor, and as i am doing this, the rubber washer pops off and falls into the juice!!!!
, and because its a Creshendo, i don't have enough room for the airlock to fit snug and not be in contact with the juice (so there would be no airflow).... so i decide to auto siphon with the mesh filter into a carboy because the hydrometer read .998 after 5 days.... well since i'm racking 2 days early to protect from my ant enemies, the siphon kept catching some air/carbondioxide from the fermenting yeast, and so i would lose my siphon every 10-15 seconds
, so i keep pumping, and pumping, and all of a sudden, my mesh filter falls off in the fermenter
... so now i get oak and skins in my auto siphon, (not fun cleaning up), and so i still have half a carboy to fill up... now i "somewhat listen to George", where he mentions, with a creshendo kit, use a funnel and filter to get all the juice out, and KEEP A BUCKET NEAR BY!!!! so i put the funnel on top of the carboy, and the nose doesn't fit in snug, and i half half a fermenter filled with wine to dump in this funnel, all by myself
, so i just don't want to spill it, so i am slowly pouring with one hand, holding the funnel with the other, and admiring how good a job i am doing getting all the juice in the carboy
.... all of a sudden, i see the filter float up to the top of the funnel, and in my bewilderment, i feel the juice splashing on the floor from the overflow of the full carboy
(why didn't i listen to George and have that bucket nearby!!!!)..... so i kicked a few things, beat up my dog, and threw the cat out the window!!!! just kidding i ahve no pets, goodthing, too!!! i'm still laughing about, because i don't know what else to do, besides keep cleaning up the mess (after 2 hours of cleaningi went to bed)and that doesn't include the half hour i spent going through all the seeds, skins, and oak looking for the daggone rubber washer (which i did find!!!)... stupid is as stupid does i guess!!! so thats my great winemaking experience of the night.... could anything else have gone wrong???? can i write this as an article for winemmaker magazine!!!! Edited by: cbwenger