Recent content by brottman

I just brewed this kit this morning but something went wrong. After mashout, I took a gravity reading and it was around 1.05 (seems normal to me). The instructions say to add 3/4 cup maple syrup after the boil, which I did. However, after cooling the wort down, I took another gravity reading...

I just brewed this kit this morning but something went wrong. After mashout, I took a gravity reading and it was around 1.05 (seems normal to me). The instructions say to add 3/4 cup maple syrup after the boil, which I did. However, after cooling the wort down, I took another gravity reading...

I'm mostly a wine guy, but love a good beer. My limited experience with beer (extract with grains) has taught me that trying to make a beer with a good honey taste by actually using honey simply results in a very harsh beer that is still not that great after a year of aging. I know there is a...

Loveofrose, what would be a good/correct amount of Fermaid O (in your opinion) using the TOSNA schedule for a 5 gallon BOMM?

Mdindy, the above responses are all correct. To put it more bluntly, what you were told about airlocks in secondary is just plain wrong. As in, the complete opposite of correct. In secondary, your wine/mead is still fermenting and needs to be able to expel carbon dioxide. Even during aging, CO2...

When I use fruit for in a wine or mead, I put it in a muslin bag to ferment in. During fermentation, I will occasionally squeeze the bag with my hands to make sure everything gets turned to mush. When I am ready for the fruit to come out (around 3-5 days), I lift the bag out of the wine and...

I did a batch with Costco clover honey. It was hot until about 3 months then suddenly seemed to settle down. Now at 4 months, still a touch hot but improving rapidly.

Red Star Montrachet https://www.fulkersonwinery.com/usr/Media/Yeast%20Media/FTMontrachetEN.pdf Lalvin EC-1118 https://www.fulkersonwinery.com/usr/Media/Yeast%20Media/Lalvin%20EC1118_Yeast.pdf

Generally speaking though, keeping things on the cooler side seems to help.

The best thing to do to get started is reference the data sheet for each yeast you are using and determine the temperature range. I can provide a link later but I only have this 30 to write a response at the moment. Back to work!

What yeast are you using? I'm no expert around here yet but the others who can help better will want to know more details. Different strains of yeast have different temperature ranges. Do you have a means of cooling the must?

Here's mine hard at work on a blueberry wine must!

How do you force carb and then bottle? I would love to be able to do that.

A few weeks ago, I used Super-Kleer on a Mead. A week later, I siphoned off the sediment from the Super-Kleer and bottled. Trying not to waste good wine, I put the last little remaining bit of Mead + sediment into a separate bottle to let it resettle, so that I could just carefully pour it off...

My first good tasting mead - currently 2 months old and tasting better than my first which is now a year old.