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Why take the risk? I'd use dish soap any day of the week over bleach.

How did you get skins and seeds out a one inch opening in the first place?

Chap happens all the time in CA whether it's legal or not, but Cupcake most likely stunts ferment near the desired residual sugars, sterile filters and adds back concentrate to adjust to the desired formula. To the home winemaker, it's more simple to just use good old fashioned beet sugar to a...

With skins? Not really any cost effective pumps which will pump solids on a small scale. If it's a white any cheap pump will work (or a 1/2" vinyl tube). Also it's a grape juice "must."

Shouldn't matter too much either way. You can transfer on day 12, just make sure the carboy is topped all the way when you transfer. You could also transfer off the skins now and it shouldn't affect the tannin extraction much at all. If you really want to be thorough, you could toss a cube or...

Cupcake has quite a bit of sugar in it, perhaps that's the missing piece for your palette?

The only way to remove Brett is through sterile filtration, at least for the home brewer. Sorbate will stop the colony from growing but will not kill existing Brett. You shouldn't have to ventilate for sulfites or sorbate. There are presumably lots of nutrients left in beer for brett to eat, so...

Works great on our corker, something small, round, and metal should work just as good. You could also try some sort of agglomerate cork without the fear of taint.

Put a dime over the top of the cork when you run it through the corker.

DAP is simply a nitrogen supplement, and is one of the most benign things one can add to a wine. You would add it to prevent problems in the future from a must low in nitrogen, and if your must had an acceptable level you would certainly not add it. Hardly some secret winery chemical.

This is utterly untrue, it is illegal for commercial wineries to add phosphoric acid to their wines. No one does.

In almost no instance would you ever add citric or malic to a wine. Adding citric in any decent quantity can start a whole mass of problems and malic, why bother? Tartaric, tannin and nutrient are all derived from grapes or wine yeast. Why not use these? As for the wine industry, they've...

Sparkling wine is generally made from less ripe grapes, resulting in higher acid and lower sugars. That said, there are a few places around the world that make a sparkling with ripe grapes. Sparkling is very difficult to do well. One must make a base wine with quite a bit of acidity, this...

Champagne uses long sur lee aging, the actual carbonation only takes a few months before it's disgorged. Prosecco would take about as long, the idea of being able to make a product of similar quality to Prosecco and save money is probably a bit far fetched. Unlike beer it is very much about...

If your happy with it as it is then I'd leave it alone. Alterations post ferment are tricky. Just be aware it probably has a considerable amount of sugar left, I wouldn't plan on letting the bottles sit around too long.

Champagne bottles are designed to withstand large amounts of pressure, normal bottle are not. Keep that in mind for sure. Champagne is picked at high acid and low sugar levels when compared to still wines and the dosage is a very technical, nearly surgical procedure. Don't let that stop you...

Plenty of wines out there that sit sur lie without being stirred. It's definitely common for whites though.

It should be noted that lots of wineries do a "sur lie" where they leave a wine on the fine (sometimes even gros) lees for years even. Hell, vintage Champagne must by law spend three years on it's fine lees. The lees can add lots of complexity to a wine. If the wine tastes good why rack? If the...

Seems like you can either water back and pull the alcohol down or leave it a little hot. It's always tough to integrate acid at the end of a ferment, but I suppose that is still doable too. At 29 Brix I would definitely check my wine with a clini test or send out a sample to make sure the sugar...

Muscat is another varietal that has a lot of aromatics to offer.