Recent content by VermontFreedom

I'm going to try growing some Concord vines. I harvested about a tablespoon of seeds from several pounds of concord grapes that were grown locally. I dried them and they've been in cabinet storage for about 9 months. Does anyone know if Concord grape seeds need to be cold-stored (frozen) for...

Someone recently gave me 12 lbs of concord grapes. I decided to experiment, never having made grape wine before from raw fruit. I wanted to make a white, but decided squeezing the fruit out of the skins was too much work (note: after pre-processing, I think this is NOT the case!), so I just...

I made a port kit. It's a standard "ruby" port. I'm sure it'll be o.k. to good with some aging. But I prefer tawny to ruby ports. So, how do I make my ruby port into a tawny? Does it require special oak barrel aging? How does fortifying with brandy change the ruby vs tawny?

I let the campden work for 48 hours - 24 hours longer than usually recommended, so I think that had little effect. I pitched my first packet of yeast after an attempted proofing (it never started) and it never started in the must. So I pitched a second packet, which started VERY slowly, but...

Yes, the OG was higher than any other concoction I've ever made 1.08-something! As per recipe, I added about 2 lbs sugar per gallon.

I am beginning to think perhaps water has more to do with off flavors in my meads and wines. But I've made excellent wine and really bad wine with the same water. How much influence on final flavor will water have? I have mildly hard water (well water) where I live, but it goes through...

I've made 3 batches of mead thus far. All fermentations went well, and I'm waiting (MONTHS AND MONTHS) for them to condition/age. My recipes tell me to give them a full 18 months in the bottle, but I'm terribly impatient. When I've stolen a taste at racking or bottling, they were 'sour'...

I used a juicer both last year and this year to make apple and pear wines. I think it works great. It takes a little more prep time, but--compared to using chunks of raw fruit, which will disintegrate and get VERY pulpy--you'll have to rack fewer times and the wine will clarify much quicker!

I juiced about 50 pounds of apples to produce 3+ full gallons of raw juice/cider. I racked it a couple of times while it was still just the pressed juice to get rid of a lot of sediment. It started to ferment on it's own, so I added about 2 crushed campden tablets to the carboy and let it sit...

I store my dry wine yeast (mostly Lavlin EC1118, K1V1116, 71B1122, Red Star Montrachet, etc.) in a refrigerator. Is that necessary? Is it damaging? Never had a problem until a current batch of apple wine. Tried to proof a package of K1V1116 - no reaction. Next night, a packet of 71b1122...

Lorena: Go to http://www.eckraus.com and look for yeasts in the lower right of the home page. Check out the Lavlin yeasts, for starters. This will not be a scientific treatment of yeasts and strains, but it will tell you what kinds of wines various yeasts are good for. That is, whether...

I have recipes that call for adding campden tablets to a fruit-and-water mixture and letting it sit for 72 hours before starting fermentation. I have other recipes that call for putting the must together right away and adding a campden tablet at first racking. What do you folks do and...

I've never made cherry wine from raw fruit, yet, but have read some recipes. Most call for a combination of cherries, almost all call for some of them to be sour. Remember you can always sweeten the wine before bottling (or before drinking). I might recommend looking up a bunch of recipes on...

How many folks use an energizer (more minerals) than just a yeast nutrient for their musts? How about dead hulls like a Ghostex product? Worthwhile?

Yep, I learned a thing or two after reading it, too. Wish I had read that about a year ago! I've made just 3 meads so far and -- mistakenly -- used Montrachet in each one. What a mistake. When racking, each one had a decided sour off taste that I'm hoping will disappear after complete (18...