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Not so certain that it is the copper, itself that is toxic, but for sure even a small quantity of copper sulfate can kill you dead. Using copper pots or copper wool to scrub pans would seem to be harmless even if you cook with lots of acidic foods or you are very aggressive when you clean with...

A couple of quick thoughts. Using copper wool - the sort you can buy at your local supermarket used for scrubbing pots is what some folk use. You might slip a few threads inside your siphon tube and rack through the threads or place a small bundle in a hop sock which you attach to the end of...

I have decided to make 2024 the year I focus on making fruit "ciders" (your coolers) at around 5-7% ABV. Certainly, you can find bottled juices at your local supermarket, but frozen fruit is also a way to go. And then there are Winexpert Island Mist wine kits that are labelled as "coolers"...

Looks like I may be a bit of a contrarian here but I boiled 4 oz of chocolate malt barley per gallon of mulberry wine for the pronounced chocolate flavor this roasted barley provides to chocolate stouts and I earned a silver medal at the Cellarmasters of LA wine competition in November. I have...

Two quick thoughts. 1. I'd start by making a batch larger than the batch I intend to bottle. The lees are then the sacrificial amount that is in the primary but when you rack, you completely fill the secondary right up into the neck. 2. The sediment and the lees you pour off into a tall and...

I guess my question is what exactly are you calling the "apple cider" you are fermenting. If the juice was pressed to make a sweet drink (apple juice) then 99 times out of 100 the people pressing the fruit are pressing table apples. Cider apples tend to be too tart, too tannic and too crumby to...

Is your Buckwheat honey from the west coast? East coast buckwheat tastes worse than awful. No good reason to spoil the lovely flavors of Orange Blossom with east coast Buckwheat. I used this honey for my first ever batch of mead and was unable to think making a second batch for more than 4...

Have not bought any of these stirrers... yet... but I am always loathe to spend money on stuff that is not raw material for wine, mead or cheese making.

I wonder if the issue for general cheese-making might be the efficacy of the cultures you are using. Most recipes, I understand are based on the amount of time at a known temperature the bacteria need to grow to acidify the cheese. If the culture is too small or too old or the temperature is to...

Sounds as if these folk are using freeze dried lab cultured strains of bacteria and not the bacteria found in raw milk. Or using clabbered milk as their culture source or indeed, backslopping with whey from a previous batch. Single use cultures may provide the labs that produce these products...

I wonder if the drop in acidity might be caused by a reduction in CO2 production and so carbonic acid? If you are degassing in the secondary, you will be removing the acid causing gas.

Clover honey or wildflower honey tends to be inexpensive and all other things considered, those honeys cannot do a one -man show. They are spear carriers , in my opinion. For a bigger bang for your buck, ferment using those cheaper honeys and back sweeten using a more expensive varietal. Most...

Except, I would argue that a trad mead is naked. There is no place to hide any flaws and as a novice mead maker, there will be many flaws. Mead ain't grain and brewing beer ain't exactly the same as making a mead. Check out likely flaws and use the 13 lbs at 3 lbs at a time (with perhaps 4 oz of...

Hi Kemsley and welcome. Here's my take. An hydrometer is more useful when you are in the middle of making a mead or wine than when you begin. For most mead (and for country wines - that is wines made from fruit other than grape wines, you can make two fairly reasonable assumptions. 1. One pound...

But be very aware of two important considerations. 1. Even if you stagger the amount of honey you feed the yeast, alcohol is toxic for the yeast and every lab cultured yeast has published tolerance for yeast. You exceed that tolerance and the yeast are dead. The yeast die , and you are stuck...

Does anyone here, who presumably also brew beer and /or make wine use Star San to sanitize cheese making kettles and tools or do you choose to boil everything? Is Star San, for example, only really good for cleaning surfaces (tables and counters) in the food world or can it be used as we do when...

Thanks, Doug293cz. This was my working assumption and since I could not use the proof hydrometer to measure the proof or gravity and I could only go by basic calcs based on water dilutions... I was uncertain Cheshire Cat, Really important point to consider, but in this case I am sweetening a...

If I have say, a liter of spirit at 70% ABV (140 p) and I add 1 liter of water, the spirit will be reduced to 35%. If that liter includes say, 300 g of sugar (same 1 liter volume) does the added sugar do anything to the ABV? Is the liqueur still 35%? I imagine it is, but I am uncertain. Thanks.

Great question. I always ask the LHBS to mill any grains I buy. They do need to be milled and the LHBS will know how fine to mill 'em if you tell them how you want to use them.

Not off-base but you need to be sure that your juice has no added preservatives. Pasteurizing simply kills indigenous bacteria and mold spores and so ensures that apples that had dropped from the trees and were contaminated with animal waste will not have listeria or e-coli among other...