Retired about 3 years ago. With an unstable economy/society, I decided it was time to develop some skills in the event that store and winery supplies become scarce. Interested in making country wine for personal consumption and sharing with friends and family.
New to Winemaking
- Thread starter RBAllan
- Start date
Help Support Winemaking Talk - Winemaking Forum:
Ohio Bob
Senior Member
Welcome, you will find lots of helpful people and advice here.
FlamingoEmporium
Senior Member
People are helpful and friendly here. Welcome. Check out the beginners winemaking thread and the country fruit thread
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2019
- Messages
- 681
- Reaction score
- 1,097
Welcome to WMT!
Welcome to WMT wine making was my new pandemic hobby. Beware, it’s habit forming (the wine making).
Welcome to WMT!
The learning curve might seem a little intimidating at the very beginning but It's really not.
I started last October and I have 2 suggestions -
Advice #1 - take notes, log what you do from the very beginning.
Advice #2 - start planning for a brew room and bottle storage (full and empty) now. As in right now!
The learning curve might seem a little intimidating at the very beginning but It's really not.
I started last October and I have 2 suggestions -
Advice #1 - take notes, log what you do from the very beginning.
Advice #2 - start planning for a brew room and bottle storage (full and empty) now. As in right now!
If you are interested in a text on winemaking I suggest Jack Keller's book "Home Winemaking" available on Amazon. Mostly country wines but the basics are there for grape wine making as well
That book was my starting point as well. there are some good recipes to get you started and useful information on acidity and k-meta. I know there has been a lot of discussion about the amount of fruit he calls for in many of his recipes. I look at his recommendations as minimums and add more based on availability and taste.
when you get to the point of planning a fruit wine search the forum and ask away… you will get lots of good input.
Thanks. I've started with the training wheels on a bike approach. Start with a gallon of organic apple juice, add 1.5 cups of sugar, 1/2 packet of Fleishmann's yeast, let it ferment until the specific gravity stops changing, and see what I have. So far so good. Fermentation going great, about one bubble per second on the fermentation lock and 3 days into the fermentation.
Next step would be to see how a wine yeast affects the process with a fresh batch and compare against the first batch. Later, I've got my eyes on a peach tree at a local winery I belong to that produces lots of fruit but they just let the fruit rot on the ground. I might try producing a peach wine late this summer.
I haven't seen the book but a couple weeks ago I downloaded a PDF of the "Complete Requested Recipes", more than 300, interesting stuff. Sorry, don't have link.
That’s one way to do it. Others (l’m not the only one) push the bike to the top of the hill, strip the brakes, cut the chain off, and jump on!
. We are the ones frantically looking for help to fix our wines 
Thanks. I just ordered that book. As they say, you can never have too many recipe books. I also have had the book "Enjoy Home Winemaking" by Robert and Eileen Frishman for decades, but never looked at it until this year when I decided it was time to do something meaningful in my retired life. For my first batch I have relied upon guidance from YouTube videos. I'm into my third day making apple wine and getting about a bubble per second from the fermentation lock. The kitchen is starting to smell like a winery.
Jack Keller and Daniel Pambianchi wrote a book titled: Home Winemaking that Mrs Keller released for publication after Jack's death. That book (available on Amazon) is 65 recipe subset of the pdf file download.
FlamingoEmporium
Senior Member
You forgot to loosen the nut on the seatThat’s one way to do it. Others (l’m not the only one) push the bike to the top of the hill, strip the brakes, cut the chain off, and jump on!
