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I have a batch of "Freezer Punch" wine that I bottled back in June. I'd had it in secondary for four months and I wasn't getting much sediment when racking, so I went ahead and bottled it. I hadn't advanced to using any clarifying agents at the time, and it's opaque. I was hoping that with time...

I prefer to simmer my fruit rather than boil. In my experience boiling can make it bitter and also tends to make a cloudiness that doesn't go away unless you let the wine age a couple years.

I just bottled it. It smells a bit like Pine-Sol, which I'm not happy about, but tastes pretty decent. The one thing I dislike about jalapenos is how inconsistent they are. This is less "murderhornet" and more "yellowjacket". Next time I think I'll work with 30 lemons, a dozen jalapenos, and no...

On Jan 20th I added sparkolloid to my still-cloudy-after-eight-months "Murderhornet" wine - basically skeeter-pee with jalapenos. Bam! Clarified in one week. Looks spectacular, and the lees were a compact layer in the bottom. Thanks @videojunkie1208 !

Chitosan is off my list because it's not vegan, and since it's typically paired with kieselsol, that's off the list as well. I think I'll go with pectic enzyme twenty hours after campden tablets, four hours before pitching the yeast. Bentonite when racking to secondary. Sparkolloid at next...

So, when researching kieselsol and chitosan, I found this site, which covers a lot more fining agents: https://www.winemakersdepot.com/Fining-Agents-Cheat-Sheet-W148.aspx Bentonite and sparkolloid are vegan-friendly. Chitosan is not, and may also cause shellfish allergy reactions. One of my...

Thanks, I hadn't thought of the vegetarian aspect. I'm hoping that when I switch from the blender to the press that most of my sediment issues go away.

According to the interwebs, it's fishbone. Bentonite clay reportedly makes bigger lees that limit yield, and sparkolloid reportedly make a fine, compact layer. I've been using pectic enzyme, and it sure does help. I'll assume sparkolloid does like any other fining additive and removes some...

I haven't heard of sparkolloid. What are the downsides to it? I went ahead and ordered a packet, mostly because I needed $5 more to get Amazon's free shipping on some other stuff.

Now that I have a dozen or so wines under my belt, I need to work on my quality. I'm planning on purchasing a press this year, and I think that will do a lot to get the sediment out of my wines and make using the hydrometer easier. What can I do to improve the quality on the backend, when...

I use cherries from a tree in my backyard and I'm not sure what variety they are. They're small and tart, but they are cherries and not sandplums. This last year we had a late freeze and I got nearly nothing. I bought some Rainier cherries and I'm not impressed with the cherry-ness of the...

I agree on the sugar. Cherry wines are naturally sour, so you have to sweeten them or the sour + dryness will turn people off it. Also, I have friends who beg for cherry-jalapeno, so I really have to sweeten mine to counter the heat + sour + dryness. I did a 5 gallon batch of cherry-jalapeno...

In my limited experience, potato wine has a very broad, but bland flavor to it. I tend to blend potatoes into other wines. The best so far has been potato-mint. Mint wine has a very thin, but distinct flavor. The two blended are more than their sum.

Update: When I strained it on the 7th, I put the lees and liquid in a bottle in the fridge. It steadily settled off over the last week and a half, and I finished drinking it tonight. It might be cloudy, but it's pretty good. Afterwards I went ahead and got the bucket out of the garage and racked...

I have a five-gallon batch of peach wine that's been in secondary fermentation since April. I blended the peach, added water and sugar, simmered it on the stove, cooled it, and started primary fermentation. At the time I hadn't started using pectic enzyme, but since I've been using it in other...

So, I discovered that if you pour a glass and add a tiny pinch of cinnamon on top it's really amazing - granted my version had potato.

I've been making cherry wine for a couple years now. My cherries are a little more akin to sandplums, fairly sour when they're fresh. I typically pick them, triple-rinse them, and immediately put them in the freezer. When I'm ready to make wine I thaw them and pretty much immediately put them in...

So... I was going to do the campden tablets, 12 hours, pectic enzyme, 12 hours, yeast, but my daughter's car broke down and I had to troubleshoot it. I ended up starting my wine late, which led to only 6 hours of sleep, rushed to work and then to a birthday party, which resulted in adding the...

Thanks! Apologies, Pectic Enzyme, i.e. pectinase, not Pectin Enzyme.

I've had problems in the past getting my wines to clarify, so I recently bought some pectin. I don't have amylase yet, but plan on buying some in the near future. I'm wondering on best practices for using pectin and amylase. The recommendation I saw was to toss in one crushed campden tablet per...