Recent content by Yossarian

Following up on this. My skeeter pee is brewed, kegged, and carbonated. It's pretty delicious. In the end, I made the slurry with a 1L bottle of cranberry juice and a packet of EC1118. After pitching the slurry, I was at SG 1.065, and it fermented down to about .995, which I think gives me...

Awesome, thanks for the tips everyone!

I think I'd like to try making skeeter pee, which is a lemon wine. The recipe (http://skeeterpee.com/recipe) calls for yeast slurry, which I don't have on hand. Is there a way to substitute this, like can I put some wine yeast in a bowl with some water and sugar for a week and just let it...

Further update. Chapitalisation pushed the SG up to 1.028, and I just racked to secondary with an SG of 1.010. Looks like it's going to be textbook this time around. :)

Update: After weeks of attempting to restart that batch, it started getting scummy looking stuff growing on it, so I abandoned it. I started my 3rd (and final) kit, and just started the chapitalisation stage. I did things differently this time. Even though the instructions say to clamp down...

It's come back down from 1.06 to 1.056, not much change. This is going to be more like syrup than booze :)

I checked it again tonight, still stuck at 1.06 (since the sugar added for chapitalisation upped the SG). I sighed. Then I totally randomly found another packet of EC-1118 I had in the cupboard for maybe 3 years, from when I meant to make root beer. I put it in 200ml of warm water, stirred it...

Well, 4 days and it still hasn't budged from 1.05, so I moved on and started the chapitalisation. Now it's at 1.06. I'm curious to see if it eats the added sugar and goes down to 1.05 or if it sticks at 1.06.

I tried something else last night before I read this. I removed the hoodie that I had around the fermentor to keep out light, and wrapped it in wrapping paper instead, and then I put a couple of double-folded towels between the heat pad and the bottom of the fermentor. I'm thinking it was...

It's called Winexpert Chocolate Raspberry Dessert Wine http://www.winexpert.com/wine?brand[]=536&keywords=Chocolate%20Raspberry%20Dessert%20Wine&v=list&p=details Interesting, in googling the exact name, I've found a few references to this kit stalling out early. I'm not the only one.

I have not added hot water. Does yeast sink? I wonder if it is possible that the temperature around the fermentor, where I am taking a reading, is ok, but maybe the temperature at the bottom surface is hot enough to kill yeast? Step 1 for this kit is to slowly sprinkle some bentonite into...

Hi, yes. A hydrometer. I even tested / calibrated it. Tap water reads 1.000 and a solution of 24g of sugar with 176g of water reads 1.048. So the hydrometer seems to be behaving.

Hi. I'm not really a wine maker. I've done my share of beer, but decided to try some port kits from the local store. I'm on my second kit. The instructions say to proceed to stage 2 when the SG gets below 1.020. I can not get the SG below 1.05, nor could I with the first batch. The...

Awesome, thanks for the confirmation Doug.

Hi. I'm brewing an extract recipe, which has been sitting on my shelf for 2 months. It looks like one of the tubs of extract has contamination, there appears to be 2 kinds of mold on top. I have picked it off with a spoon. I should still be on top use this, right? It's going to get boiled anyways.