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Thanks for both replies! The initial reading was about 1.090 and I used EC1118. It's actually looking active now and has reached 1.022, so I'll take your advice and move it to the carboy tomorrow. So far it hasn't oxidized - it tastes pretty good. I'm very happy not to be throwing it out! It's...

I had my first ever stuck fermentation - blueberry and blackberry wine, using a recipe I've used before, and also started alongside another batch that used a lot of the same fruit but was just fine - so I have no idea what went wrong. It stopped fermenting around 1.050. Anyhow I followed a...

My notes say that neither sparkolloid or bentonite made it any clearer - just reduced the final amount of wine I got. I bottled it a few weeks later and it was fine to drink. That was only my third batch of fruit wine, and all the recipes said it had to be crystal clear before bottling. It was...

Can I ask - do you use the sorbate in the kit when it's a dry wine? I never use it with fruit wines, and I'd prefer to leave it out. I thought about maybe leaving it under airlock for an extra month or so (after degassing and clearing) instead.

That's what I thought - thanks!

I'm making wine from a kit for the first time in years - I've made many batches of fruit wine though, so I'm familiar with the general process. It's at day 12, and on track to reach 0.998 and proceed to stabilizing and clearing around day 14 as per the instructions. I've followed the...

It may be a matter of personal taste - I started out following recipes that called for acid blend, but now I usually don't add any. Also I make dry fruit wines, and I don't find they need sweetening. I mostly use blackberries, blueberries and peaches.

For your litre of water and 500 g sugar it gives OG 1.143 which is close to SonomaBrewer's 1.145.

SG equals (W + S)/ (W + 0.625S) Where W is water in litres and S is sugar in kg. I'm not sure where I got that from, but I used it last week and it seemed to work.

You can't! Measure specific gravity at the beginning when most of the juice is still in the fruit, that is. And of course if you leave a mesh bag of fruit in the fermenting must for several days, then squeeze out the juice when it's easy to do, which is my method, any measurement taken then will...

If you'd left it in a more open primary, you'd transfer it to the carboy when the hydrometer read 1.030 to 1.010. Since it's already in a carboy and you can see what's going on, rack it again in a month - unless there's a thick layer building up at the bottom which could produce off flavours, in...

I wash my hands and wrists very well, scrub my nails, use a clean towel, and dip my hands in the sanitizer solution right before squeezing the bag. I've done that many times and it's never caused a problem so far as I can tell! Also I wring as much juice as possible out of the bag, even if it...

That's good news that the yeast woke up! There are different wine yeast types available, some of which start fermenting easily and some of which are more finicky. If you online search for "wine yeast strains" you'll find charts. The most widely available is EC-1118, which starts every time...

Blackcurrants are indeed very acidic. I started a batch in July 2017 and have 5 bottles still aging, and a note from Dec 2020 that the flavour is lovely but if it's not mellowed out (in terms of acidity) by Christmas 2021 I may have to use the rest for mulled wine. For reference I used 5.5 kg...

Oh I hate to disappoint the lurkers, but someone else beat me to the clearance juice!

I do the same as Yooper - I have a large collection of glass jugs and bottles of various sizes and bungs to fit, and I make extensive notes that I use to plan subsequent batches. Jack Keller had an excellent blog post called "How to Use Recipes" that included "How Much Wine Do Recipes Make?"...

True - I make fruit wine, and have not yet gotten around to making a fruit press. Not sure about "steeping" though - that makes it sound like the fruit is just dipped in and taken out. When I remove the mesh bag of fruit, after several days fermenting in the primary, I squeeze out as much...

I made blackcurrant wine in summer 2017, based on a Jack Keller recipe with 5.5 kg blackcurrants, 3.4 kg sugar, 10.6 litres water, no added tannin or acid blend, fermented dry and not backsweetened. The initial volume was 4 gallons, so I think you used about 20% more fruit than me. Bottled in...

Looks like you've found it - if not, I have the recipe (yes that is too much sugar!)

Well I rack after one month, then about every two months, until it's clear and not dropping lees (or until I run out of wine to drink). Sometimes I forget and leave it longer. I think the main thing is not to let it sit on a ton of gunk for too long, and to always sanitize everything well. A...