Total Waste

[Madriver Wines]

Has anyone had to throw the entire batch of must out? It looks like the second wine Jon tried has gone bad. Smells like garbage. Any horror stories?

 

[smurfe]

The only batch I ever threw out didn't go bad, I just screwed it up. I had a batch of Mosti Port I had just started. I thought I was grabbing a carboy of blackberry off the shelf to bottle. I grabbed the carboy of still fermenting port. filtered it and bottled it. I probably could of salvaged it but I was so PO'd I just threw it all in the dumpster.

 

[smurfe]

I guess I ought to add, I have threw batches out but they were experiment recipes that just tasted like crap. Most of the time it was from too high alcohol content in a fruit wine. They were all one gallon batches though. I have never had to toss a 5-6 gallon batch.

 

[Wade E]

Not go bad but screwed up when switching over from campden tablets to powdered sulfite and trying to follow the instructions on a Vintners Harvest Wine Base can for using a liquid sulfite addition and man did I screw that it!!!!!!!!!!!! I over sulfited 2-6 gallon batches by at leats 10x as much as it should! down the drain they went.

 

[Tom]

Funny you say that. My worst batch I wound up fixing. I went to my LHBS and brought a sample and they suggested a few things. I wound up winning 2 (TWO) gold medals from it. Just goes to show there may be hope!

 

[Luc]

Last year I had a batch of 30 liter dandelion must.
It was cold-soaking when it went south......
I had to toss it all (made from 4500 dandelions........)
http://wijnmaker.blogspot.com/2008/04/een-ongenode-gast-uninvited-guest.html

Year before I was still thinking Kiwi's could make a good
wine. So for the second year in a row I had to toss 10 liter
kiwi wine (man it was filthy).

Once I made a rice wine. It smelled so bad afther a few weeks
that I did not dare to let it go further. So I tossed that also.
That was just 5 liter.

Come on guys, I never worry one night over it. It is just a hobby.
It is not paying my bills. So things can and may go wrong. You can learn from that.
We can do things no professional winemaker can,as he would loose his income from mistakes.

Luc

 

[Madriver Wines]

Good point Luc . If you make enough wine and like to experiment your bound to make a boo boo sooner or later. We just went at it sooner thats all lol. Hopefully Jon has got that out of his system.

 

[St Allie]

I made a gallon of treacle ale ( molasses and golden syrup).. I think it would have been ok if I'd left it to finish.. couldn't stand the smell!