Recent content by nik2

They're not as good as glass bottles with corks, but not terrible either. There's some research somewhere or other where they did a comparison over a year and had some oxidisation through the bag, but probably nothing my amateur palate would notice. My first thought had been that I'd not put...

It was stored in a bag in a box rather than bottles, so couldn't really tell. By the time you've got the tap out of the box it's got fairly mixed around. I'm guessing I can just try and see what happens, and if it settles out then that's good. It just seems so murky that I can't believe I missed...

About a year ago I made 4 gallons of blackberry wine, and racked once and then put into wine boxes. I'd normally rack more times than that but I must have been half asleep. Now a year later I've tried some and it's quite murky. It tastes ok (a bit thin), but the appearance puts you off drinking...

I did the same with my first wines, and they were still ok after a year's ageing. I found a web page that had taken a very thorough approach at comparing the effects of bags vs bottles, and the conclusion was that if it's wine you care about then put it in bottles. That said, the article didn't...

Looks like they need a bit of space to bob about (especially as they float tilted). That means a larger area exposed to the air (even assuming you can get it into a demijohn), so maybe not suitable from that perspective?

Thanks Nooner, that made me rethink things. I had a search and found some good research that matches what you say (http://www.academicwino.com/2014/02/bag-in-box-versus-glass-bottles.html/) - for my beginner wines and non-expert palate I'm probably getting away with it, but looks like bottles...

I'm storing my wine in bags (bought on ebay). It means I can tap off a small glass just to see how it's going rather than a whole bottle (apparently doesn't let any air in unless the bag is starting to get empty). It's easier to store than bottles too.

How was the acidity? The recipe I used had precipitated chalk to counter the oxalic acid, and the result was very nice. I'm not sure what oxalic acid tastes like though - I've heard some people taste it a lot more acutely than others, and I don't think I'm one of the sensitive ones...

I've made my first rhubarb wine and very pleased with the results. When looking for a recipe I saw a lot of people saying rhubarb wine was useful mainly for blending - this had me worried that I was making a wine that was bland or weakly flavoured. However the end result has been great -...

Jack Keller had a nice table of complimentary ingredients, although it's a bit buried in his blog. Look at http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/wineblognew.asp and do a page search on 'Complementary Wine Ingredients'. His table doesn't line up very well either, but it's possible to figure out (I...

No, maybe I should think about that more than I do, but they feel 'cleaner' than muslin (of which I have several nasty looking bags that I doubt I'll ever use again). The wine making tends to be always cold water - I don't heat stuff up much (although I do use them in jam making, which is very...

Paint strainer bags are great. They do wash well, but aren't that expensive in the first place anyway.

Did you order a ph meter? I'm at the same point as you, and did a quick purchase of cheap litmus paper (I saw the comment that it's unreliable, but it was very cheap!). It just struck me that the berry juice might add to the colour, so reading the strip won't work very well...

You only do it twice, once 24 hours before pitching yeast to stop unwanted yeasts, and then again when you bottle to help preserve it. You wouldn't add it when transferring to the secondary as it's still fermenting, and the tablet would stop that.

After reading around I'm thinking it's not a big deal. Sugar content of sultanas is only 10%. So for a recipe needing 500g that's only 50g of sugar which is not a lot compared to the 1 kg of refined sugar that's going into it. Raisins would have been a different story at 65%. Jack Keller...