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Cheap marbles made overseas where they have a lot of lead issues, putting them in a acid mead, no way. Marble King in WV has cheap bulk plain clear American made lead free marbles you can buy by the pounds. http://www.marblekingusa.com/

I think the grading is kind of like where most people graft for thickness, so there can be a thin part on top and lower its thicker. Since your first priority seems to save this tree, graft some up high trying to match up diameters better just to keep it alive, and later when it takes off you...

You will read that pencil thick scions are best, but on an old tree like that it probably hard to find year old scions that thick, if that is the case still take the thinner ones and try to graft some dwarf rootstocks just to preserve it. Good luck.

If your crabapple was grafted those shoots coming up from the bottom could be from the rootstock and when you grow them it wont be your crabapple. Is the crabapple tree still alive? You can take even small twigs to graft, cut them now and put in a plastic bag in the refrigerator and immediately...

It is indeed a great honey for making a traditional all on its own, but not every year is a good one for the flowers, in our area we had a rainy period during bloom so it washed out the honey crop. We have the trees on our property, hoping this year will be good. Frost got our locust blooms...

Iodine stains starches, unripe apple have more starch then ripe apples since the starch has been turned into sugar, since you are picking your own apples you can easily stain some to see how ripe they are when you pick them, you can also store them for a while after picking to mature - turning...

Sulfites AND Sorbate are required - only if you are sweetening and dont want carbonation. At bottling sulfites are there to prevent oxygenation and protect from spoilage organisms. Much better to use a little KM up front after pressing than heating it up, all that vapor coming off of your juice...

Ripe apples, the correct test is an iodine test, not SG since apples vary so much in how much sugar they have when ripe, vary from apple to apple on the same tree so sometimes you have to pick several times not just once.

We always add our oak directly to the cider, no soaking it or trying to sterilize them, I know this is a beer brewing forum and beer brewers have to be more carefull with beer, but you can just add the oak straight out of the package. One quick way is to use oakmor powder in the primary, and if...

THinking about getting a 3 point hitch forklift and then build a box for it. I have seen people running a belt on a tractor to crush apples, I always thought the exhaust has to be adding something nasty to the juice. WVMJ

Should have included the link to Penderys http://www.penderys.com/ If you use green jalepenos you risk the green pepper flavor coming out, if you could find red ones that are ripe or dried ones that would be much better. WVMJ

Penderys is a good source of dried peppers. You have 2 goals, one is to add heat and one flavor. You can get dried Anchos and soak them in hot water overnight and include them in your must with the water to add flavor. Depending on how much heat you want, an alcohol extraction on some of the...

Your worried you did to good a job? Did you measure the TA before you started this batch? Just let it run its course for a couple of months and see if it ate all the acid or left enough to be balanced. Could this also be just bubbles from degassing with all the fronts moving thru lately the...

For your chocolate mead you have to read Jack Kellers webpage blog for discussion on what kind of Dutched Chocolate to use. Beside adding chocolate powder, we like to age on chocolate Nibs, vanilla bean and oak. Another high quality twist to this would be to cook the honey Bochet style to...

Yes at 1.00 but tastes sweeter than the SG reading would say, we havent been able to do the temp control before, but now have a freezer on a temp controller, now would like to build a cold room! WVMJ

Crush, press, sulphite and pectinase overnight then pitch yeast in GoFerm, leaving it on whatever pulp is left so yeast can float around on it, temp from 50-62F, now cold at 25F to get it to clear, lots of body and apple taste, plan on backsweetening a little and using a converted hot water...

Each year we like to play with at least one yeast we have not used before. This years it was 58W3. So far it seems to make a cider that is very early to drink as well as preserving a lot of appleness even though its fermented. I think this one might join our regularly used yeasts. WVMJ

Yes, early the acid was a little high then dropped, we let them sweat a while but havent yet had a good environment for them to mature. Also just about our favorite apple, have about a peck left in the basement, nice and shriveled up and getting sweeter each time we eat one. Some of the...

As above, take readings now, is there any fizz at all, did it set around all that time without sulphites, if so maybe its already done? WVMJ

If your 1.125 reading is correct you are more like 17%. What yeast did you use for this? If it tastes good your friends and family might like it. You could also decide to start next Christmas's gifts this month to age them longer and not have to rush at the end of the year. WVMJ