Greetings from Maine

[LadyStardust]

Hello, my name is Diana and my fiance and I ventured into country wine making this spring. I am an avid home cook, and he is a chef. I have been making and canning botanical jams and jellies for years (dandelion, wild violet, lilac, etc..). At the beginning of this year we made our first wild sourdough bread starter which introduced us to the world of fermentation. My late grandfather made dandelion wine every year when I was a child, and I'd always wanted to learn.

This spring, while collecting dandelions for jelly (and stumbling upon a huge patch of untended rhubarb), we just decided to take the plunge and ordered some basic winemaking supplies. It started with one carboy, an airlock and a few campden tablets. Four months later we now have, in progress, 5 gallons each of local rhubarb, local strawberry, cherry, and peach. Additionally we have 1 gallon each of local dandelion, local blueberry, blackberry, concord, and blackberry/raspberry tea wine going.

Things seem to be going pretty well for the most part, it's just alarming how quickly the hobby can spiral out of control; we need to stop investing in carboys and fermentation buckets and start saving up for bottles! We have learned something new with every batch that we start, and I decided to join the forum to keep the knowledge coming.

Thanks in advance for any future help with questions that I have!

-Diana

 

[cintipam]

Diana, welcome!

Sounds like you have some great interesting wine going already. Don't know what is near where you live but a lot of folks get bottles from friends or the recycle area then clean well and reuse. Some labels come off easier that others (Italien labels seem easy to me) so try to reuse bottles so you can keep investing where you need to, like carboys!

Watch craiglist also. I found most of my big stuff there, plus batches of already cleaned bottles.

Pam in cinti

 

[LadyStardust]

Thanks for the recycling tips, Pam! I always forget that craigslist is an option.

We have done some recycling. My fiance is a chef at a pretty large hotel, and he has the bartender saving us bottles as often as she can, so we've gotten 4-5 cases that way! I have been soaking them overnight in 5 gallon buckets in a baking soda/water/vinegar solution and, so far, the labels will slip right off and the glue will wipe off easily.

The vast majority of them are screw-top. So far we have only bottled the rhubarb wine and we used about 50% cork finish bottles from the brew shop & the other half we experimented with corking the recycled screw cap bottles.

A few of the corks began to work their way out of the screw finish bottles within 24 hours, so we capped them with the recycled caps (over the cork) and that has kept the corks in place. The cork finish bottles are doing extremely well, with no signs of the corks making a break for it.

Does anyone know if the corks being held in place by the caps on the screw-finish bottles will work for longer term storage?

-Diana

 

[cintipam]

Sorry Diana

everything I've heard and read about screwtops is bad. They are not as thick a glass, and some folks have actually had the top shatter when they tried to cork it. Stick to real cork bottles, and recycle the screw tops. Both your uncut hands and unspoiled wine will thank you.

One thing I do use that most folks don't are those ezcap bottles that have a pressure system cage thing to hold the top in place. It has replacable washers to keep it all safe. I believe that the wine does not age the same way in these as a corked bottle, but I still like to use them to keep small sampler bottles around for my hubby who only drinks wine when the mood hits him, usually accompanying certain dishes. That way he has his private stock that he can drink a little or drink a lot, always ok to reseal for next time. You can buy them new, or reuse Grolsch beer bottles. If your bartender friend can get his hands on some of those that would really be a score!

Pam in cinti

 

[Julie]

Hi Diana

Welcome to WineMakingTalk

 

[Arne]

Hello Diana,
Welcome to the forum. Arne.

 

[JohnT]

Hello and welcome..

do not use a screw top bottle unless you plan on sealing your wine with a screw cap.

The glass in the neck is much thinner and also the diameter of the bottle's opening is a bit wider. Not fit for corking!

 

[wpt-me]

Welcome to the forum from western Maine.

Bill

 

[bkisel]

Welcome to the forum!