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I started wine in a 19-litre carboy, with a mix of kit wine extract and my own juice. I left a LOT of headspace, planning to top it up on day 3-4 with juice that had the same original gravity as what's in the carboy. (1.078). Real life intervened and it's now day 8, and fermentation is mostly...

Wine kits (those for making 30 bottles) usually seem to provide about 4 litres of thick juice, which you top up with water and a kg of sugar. However, I've just realised that the ones from Wilko (UK) have only about 1 litre of juice, and require 3 kg of sugar for topping up. I'm assuming this...

My friend in another town bought his first wine kit and, following my instructions & the instructions on the box, made the wine. (White chardonnay.) He tasted it when he added the finings and confirmed that so far it tasted like "really cheap crap wine." We agreed to leave it to age for a couple...

My primary fermenter doesn't have an airlock - it's just a bucket with a not-tight lid. (Similar tightness to a garbage can.) I started a white-mulberry and dried-elderberry wine in it, here's recipe and the time line: Recipe: 3kg of white mulberries, 100gr dried elderberries, water and sugar...

Following the instructions, I did the following. What do I do now? 1. Made up the kit, let it ferment, checked SG twice and it was .997 or .998, added potassium sorbate (or something - it was for stopping fermentation), then tasted the wine. It tasted like your standard...

I made plum wine successfully last year, and followed the same recipe this year. It started at 1.090 and fermented away happily in the primary but it was 1.025 when I realized it needed to go into the secondary. Here's where the problem started. I had lent someone my usual mesh bag, so I just...

Has anyone ever tried using pekmez as the basis for wine? I live in Turkey and it's widely available. I can't imagine why it wouldn't work, unless if the boiling-down process changes the sugar negatively somehow. I've never seen it made, but basically people do this: 1. Get fruit and stomp on...

I'm making plum wine and have already put the juice, sugar, water, yeast, and yeast energizer into the primary. Everything was clean but I'm sometimes careless about putting things down and then using them without cleaning them again. ... And after the yeast was in, I realized I forgot the...

I live in a country where it's illegal to sell wine kits, but it's legal to sell the concentrated juice. My language skills aren't really up to asking the website owner the following questions - plus I don't know if he really knows. The juice is "Queen's Cellar Grape Juice Concentrate Merlot"...

Farmer's market in Istanbul, I bought 6 litres of mulberry juice. The lady swore that it was pure, no preservatives, no nothing in it. BUT... there are three problems. Firstly, it does taste like just a little sugar water has been added. Secondly, there are no ingredients or labels. Thirdly - I...

I had a coopers IPA kit and started it three weeks ago. Standard beer kit and I've made beer once before with this equipment, so it should be fine. I did three things differently from the instructions. First, I used 19 litres of water instead of 23. Secondly, I tossed in a teaspoonful of yeast...

Apologies if someone has written about this - I can't find exactly what I need. I have just acquired 3 litres of pure, freshly squeezed, pomegranate juice (with a few bits in it, but none of the white pith stuff.) I want to make it into wine. I have a half-litre of grape juice...

I started a beer kit last night - it's Export Pilsner, by the brewery Black Rock. It's supposed to be a "traditional crisp beer in the pilsen style". Unfortunately the yeast isn't moving. It was inappropriately stored for a while, so it is probably dead. I live in a country without home brew...

I'm making apple cider with a Young's kit. It's finished fermenting, but I only have a few bottles, and have NO time to get more for a few more weeks! :) If I bottle 4 litres of the cider now, so it's ready for a party in 10 days, will the remaining cider be fine in the carboy for a few...

I live in a hot country and the temperature is only reliably cool from late October to mid-April. I'd like to start a cider kit now (mid-August) but the temp may well go up to 35 celcius during the next few months. If I start a batch and the weather gets hot, will the fermentation just "go on...