Recent content by stamasd

I will - in about a year or so. Though the color is very enticing. It reminds me of a cabernet franc I made a few years ago. Great vintage.

Update 11/3/17 No bubbles either in the airlock or the fermenter for 10 days. SG is 0.996. I added 1/2 jar of Trader Joe's Turkish honey (approx 340g/12oz) and one and a half bottles (3 pints total) of Trader Joe's natural cherry juice. So now I've turned it into a sort of melomel. Put a...

And that depends on your starting ABV. If it's higher then under ideal conditions (no losses during the process and all alcohol is in the liquid phase after freezing, which doesn't happen IRL) the yield will be higher. For instance if starting at 10%ABV you can expect an ideal yield of 250ml per...

While not a mead, I did add some honey from Trader Joe, specifically their Turkish honey, to a cider I'm currently making. That was because the apple juice's OG was too low. And since the amount of honey I added makes about 1/3 of the fermentables in the batch I guess that technically that makes...

But there's a conflict between "what the container says" and what I've read in many other places.

Update 10/23/17. I have decided to add metabisulfite and sorbate today, and backsweeten next week. The secondary has been very very still in my garage for 3 weeks now, no gas evolving (temperature average about 60F). It has become very clear, I can read a newspaper through it (and that's a 6gal...

I love quinces, but I agree they probably wouldn't go well in a brewed drink. There are 3 ways I use them (when I can find them - not easy in Connecticut): 1. Eat them raw. I find them very tasty, but other people say it's an acquired taste. For me it probably comes from the 2 quince trees my...

To remove mailing labels I use isopropyl rubbing alcohol. Works very well.

Gonna go clear some woods out behind the house now, you never know what you will find.

10/5 decided to rack this week. SG is just below 1. I put an airlock on the secondary and will watch to see if there's any more fermentation going for the next few days after it's been aerated a bit during the transfer. I didn't add anything to it yet. The secondary is now in my garage where the...

No, they're about $7 per pack of 100. Have you tried looking online? I see tons of mailing labels on amazon which don't cost nearly as much - but perhaps it's different in your location.

Hm, if the OG of your juice was low it may take the little buggers some time to get started. But in my experience with various yeasts and growing conditions, if you don't see anything at all tomorrow it's time to start worrying.

I'm not fancy. I use mailing labels from Staples and a color laser printer.

Been using plastic buckets and bottles for nearly 6 years. Never had a fault in a beer or a wine that I could attribute to the fermenter.

I don't plan on bottling it yet. I just want to cold-crash it and take it off the lees into a secondary. I know it's still fermenting. My original plan was to crash it when it was at 1.010 but I just didn't have the time to do it. Today was the first day in a week when I didn't leave home at 6AM...