Search results

Hi All, My 3 apple trees had their first breakout good year (their only 3 years old. I will end up with over 35 apples each of Liberty, Spartan and Honeycrisp. They are all big and ready to pick in a few weeks. I want to make a small batch of cider but I do not have a crusher. I have a juicer...

Hi All, Does anyone bottle and cork their hard cider? I did get some flip top bottles but frankly don’t have anywhere to store 6 - 12 bottles of cider upright. But I do have plenty of wine bottle rack space. Dave

Hi all you fruit wine lovers and makers, My first ever batch of fruit wine was store bought frozen mango. Followed the recipe from “Fermenting Flavor” by Todd Combs (guys a wild man). In his video, he had all kinds of headspace in his 5 gallon primary bucket and his airlock was very active. I’m...

Good Morning All, Probably a way over the top question. I started my first ever raspberry wine from “I picked them myself” fresh berries. Made the must this morning (1 gallon batch). Now it's sitting for 24 hours to get rid of wild yeast. What’s your favorite yeast for fruit wine? Dave

Hi All, It’s been 48 hours since I pitched the yeast on my gallon batch of Mango wine and not one hint of fermentation start. Here’s where I think I might have goofed. The original recipe included a campden tablet and waiting 24 hours before pitching the yeast. However, the recipe was for...

Hi Wine Makers, Not until recently have a discovered a whole new world of wine that changed the way I look at “wine”. Other than buying a wine kit, or ordering frozen grapes from who knows when, or you have your own vineyard, grape winemaking is tough to do. My fledgling vineyard has a year or...

Hi All, This topic is for all brewers (I think). I’ve watched all the videos and seen all the gadgets on amazon regarding degassing and degassing tools. After making a drill motor degassing stick and seeing the results and using vacuum and seeing the results, I’m wondering why do I still see...

Hi All, I hope this discussion is ok here as it does pertain to bottling. I love Starsand, easy to use, I can keep a 5 gallon bucket of the stuff in the shop for a few 4-5 months but… You can not emerse anything in the bucket and empty it without creating massive bubbles. This goes for carboys...

Hi All, After following the recipe to the letter, (it was really simple), my first ever cider was pretty disappointing. It was absolutely done fermenting after 13 days, finished with a nice clear presentation and the ABV was 6.2% +-. Just…. no flavor or smell to speak of. Good mouth feel, it...

Hi All, Age old discussion I’m sure. I’ve watched videos that crush, then press, or juice and even some that cut apples up and made must (like traditional wine making). However, I have yet to hear of any differences other than folks preferences. I have a press (for my wine making), but don’t...

Hi All, My first hard cider from apple juice is coming along, almost done… give it a few more days. Being store bought juice, I don’t want to get too exited about it. So the next step would be to try real apples. Real apples are still growing here, so store bought is the next best thing. Which...

Hi Everyone, Received an order of 750ml flip top bottles from Amazon for my cider. I’ve decided to go with flip tops (and because it’s what I see a lot of home brewers do). After I got to looking at them, the spot of either side of the bottle that the metal mechanism goes is a hole probably put...

Hi Everyone, Looking at making some fruit wines (specifically mango). Where I live mango is in the grocery stores only and personally I don’t think it looks and feels good enough to buy 9 - 10 pounds of it for store prices. However… I can buy frozen organic mango chunks at Costco. I know there...

Hi All, Noob brewer here for sure. Several attempts at winemaking… mixed results. A couple three really good batched of mead, thought I’d try hard cider. After watching a gozillian videos, everyone has their own yeast favorite. I thought I’d give Red Star Premier Cote des Blancs a try on a very...

Hi Everyone, After making many batches of Mead… I thought I’d try to make some Hard Cider. Process looks easy enough. I live in the best apple growing area in the country (I’m biased), Washington state, but have a few months to go before apple pickin season, so to get started with hard cider...

Hi All, Starting to get a little nervous about the fermentation time of my first ever batch of mead. Here is a photo taken tonight, 31 days after fermentation started and it’s still going strong. Should I rack or let it go until it simmers down? All I have done was punch down the cap a few...

Hi Everyone, New mead guy here… I lost this year’s vintage from the vineyard, so thought I'd give mead a try. Headspace is very important in winemaking whilst racking. I have watched a gozillian videos about mead making and never seem to hear anything about headspace during aging, and I see...

First time poster and absolute beginner with mead. I’m a fledgling wine grower and maker, however the maker part has been tough going. I just had to toss all of the 2023 vintage Merlot… found out the hard way, the growing season for Merlot is not long enough in Western Washington. So I replanted...