Recent content by mrdillon5

You can change if you don't have it. Need an acid added but don't have and don't want to drive across town for one ingredient use a lemon, guesstimate one whole lemon = about a teaspoon of acid. No clearer, try a couple chunks of frozen papaya. Want a wine with more body in this batch? Try an...

That is a cool idea! I have also read (haven't tried it yet), that some freeze the lees and use it as a yeast starter when needed but heck you are making an ice wine too.

I poured over what liquid was left behind, usually about a quarter of a cups worth after racking. So my jug was a combination of different yeasts too. The lees did get higher than most fermentations but the taste does not seemed tainted by the extra lees. As this batch begins to slow down on...

I frequently use raisins as a nutrient and they add tannin. I use available citrus - orange, lime or lemon instead of acid blend. Since I am so close to Mexico papaya is readily available here I use about a 1/4 cup (or about a handful) of chopped papaya as a clearing agent (pectin enzyme). I...

Good one Doc!

I had about a 1/3 full bottle of grape juice that apparently I cross-contaminated with wine yeast. It was bubbling away, so I tasted it. It tasted like a juice fermenting into wine. I had a get-together the night before and there was left-over wine in different bottles. The stuff I would usually...

My pumpkin mead cleared really fast. Mine came out very dry so I did a big back sweetening. It sure does taste very good when sweetened, that dry stuff scared me. With the added sweetness the pumpkin comes through. Can't wait till this done.

I racked mine to secondary and shortly racked again because of the buildup of pumpkin pulp at the bottom. My original 1+ gallon of must is down to about 3/5 gallon now. Kind of disappointing on yield. It was dry so I added some sweet mead to secondary to bring the volume up. I also did a pumpkin...

That has got to be one HUGE pumpkin!

I got only 8 days in my primary pumpkin. I went ahead and did pumpkin wine in one pumpkin and in another pumpkin cider. I grated the flesh of a couple off all sugar pumpkins and added to the primary. Also I taped on cheesecloth over the hole of the pumpkin primary fermenters this time, that is...

I picked up a pumpkin to get this started. While preparing this I got thinking that you could make pumpkin wine, like this one http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/reques53.asp in a pumpkin or a one gallon cider recipe in a pumpkin. You could go on and on. I need more pumpkins!

I have a batch of mango/chili mead about to bottle and mango/chili wine fermenting too. I used California red chilies and Arbol chilies. The must tastes great in both. Definitely doing these batches again.

My son told me it went thru a strainer, then cheese cloth then thru some kind of filter, I believe some kind of fine mesh. He is a sous chef at a local resort and they use equipment that I never even heard of. I have read that if you strain the purée then stick it in a refrigerator the small...

I have a 5 gallon batch going right now. I usually freeze the tunas but this time my son took my bucket to work and 'motorboated' them with a big hand held machine ( puree -er ? ) about a gallon of juice was made. half into primary and half into secondary. he triple filtered the juice. All your...

I usually use Costco honey. Our local one also sells a 6 lb package from the Sonoran Desert. Great stuff in my humble opinion