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So, I finally opened the first bottle of this. Not bad! The tartness (most of it) mellowed out really nicely. It's amazing what simply letting wine sit in the bottle can do, isn't it?

So, after thinking about it and doing some research, I'm going to do the following. I will boil orange peel, vanilla bean, cinammon, and ginger to make an extract, then add the extract to taste when I rack it to secondary. I will also add a bit of oak then, because, well, why not?

I missed it, but the directions call for the spices to be added with that last hops --the last 15 minutes of the boil. Instead, I added them to the steeping grains, and steeped them at 160 degrees for 20 minutes.

I made a mistake with this kit -- misread the directions (my bad, I know) and added the spices to the steep, rather than the boil. I'm afraid I won't have much flavor from them now. Should I add some orange peel, et al, to the primary now and let some of those flavors infuse? Or add it to...

A thought just occurred to me. My wine is stored in a musty basement (a situation I'm working to correct, by the way). The steady temperature is great, but do you think the musty air might be infiltrating slowly and generating this unpleasant nose? That could explain why after enough...

It >is< possible that is more than 1/4" of lees when I rack. That's the one part I'm not >quite< as stringent about as I should be. But by the time I'm bulk aging for a longer period of time, there are close to zero lees.

Understood, and glad to provide! I just didn't want to make the original post too long..... I use used bottles. I rinse them well with a bottle washer when the wine is consumed; and before bottling I wash them again with PBW, and then blast them with Star San and let them dry on a bottle...

I add campden at every other racking. I have not added any sulfite at bottling (or less than a month before bottling). And in the case of the Grigio, it smelled and tasted delicious when I bottled it....

I'm hardly the most experienced winemaker around, but I have had many successful and delicious batches of wine (mostly reds) and mead in the past 4 years. However, lately I've had a problem cropping up in almost every batch. The wine is raw but delicious with an appetizing nose when I...

I started a hopped bochet last year; and will be bottling it this weekend. It's already really interesting, although the flavors still need time to meld nicely. I figure I'll give it about a year or so. I have yet to decide if I will bottle in beer bottles or wine bottles. I will probably...

Let me weigh in, also, on really liking the All-in-One. I >always< bulk age my wines, red or white, and they are always crystal clear before I bottle. That being said, filtering really does polish them -- they look spectacular after the filtering. And it's no small matter, too, that using...

Since bananas are often used to add body to a wine, increasing the amount of bananas can only make for a more full-bodied wine, I would think. The one thing I have read a lot (and Yooper's recipe specifically states) is that maturing it in the bottle a good 2 years (or more) is important for...

I made a 3-gallon JAOM last year with Cuties. I used 6 -- they're a lot smaller than a regular orange. I didn't peel 'em -- just cut 'em up per the classic JAOM - and it came out delicious. Cuties are a little more orangey than other oranges, though. If I used 'em again, I'd probably use 4...

As far as level of effort, I have always lived by this phrase: "Wine likes lazy."

I have a mango/chili pepper mead now gently clearing....I had it on chilis and jalapenos in the primary ferment for about 10 days (sans seeds and veins), but upon first racking, it was seriously hot. Tasty (sort of), but hot with capsaicin. I liked it, but figured it would not be generally...

So, I racked this off the (very!) prodigious sediment last night, and allowed myself a little taste. I like it a lot -- it's pretty hot, though. The warmth starts at the back of the throat, and kind of blossoms into your mouth. I do like it as is, but I'm hoping the pepper heat will mellow...

If you shine the flashlight through perfectly cleared wine, you will not see the light beam in the wine. If you see the beam, it is reflecting off of suspended particles, and the wine is not clear.

I just started a batch of this, with minor variations. First, in a 3 gallon batch, I used about 8 pounds of honey and 2 cups of corn sugar. Secondly, I roasted peppers -- 4 jalapenos, and 4 red chilis -- and added the roasted peppers to the must. I suppose this will be a capsicumel, since...

So, I started this last night. Boiled it down to a beautiful, almost black color. No, the process wasn't fun, and it did need to be stirred constantly, but it also smelled great -- and was fascinating to watch the honey transform. And I was prepared for the cleanup to be a mess, but it...

Right! I forgot to mention that. I have nice honey from a friend's apiary that I will use to backsweeten. I also suspect it may not need much sweetening (if any), between the caramelized honey and the DME.