2013 crop

It's been 3 years since I posted here. Much water under the bridge and at one point I thought I might be forced to give up. No grapes in 2011 as July rain made the berries split, and no grapes in 2012 as it was too wet and cold at all the wrong times. 2013 started a month late but we caught up a good part of that with the hot summer down here in Southampton. Flowering happened in ideal conditions - dry, warm and a bit of a breeze to spread the pollen about. Thinking the season would be short I was...

truck wash and a jet bottle washer



and this is the tool you need to get them out of bottle banks (a lightly modified litter grabber)



...

Whats that then..

These are straight walled tanks, with open tops. The lid floats on the surface of the wine and has what is best described as a bicycle inner tube around the outside which is inflated by a pump to form a seal.

Options
I own and use a couple of stainless variable capacity tanks (VCT). Until recently these were the only option in the UK.
However last week a very nice man at www.fruitpresses.co.uk kindly sent me the 300L PLASTIC tank. ...

Here is my attempt at answering any questions you may have about your frozen grapes.
If you think of a question I have not answered you are probably not alone - please email me .

How many bottles does it make? I thought I would start with the tough one first :-) We sell frozen grapes as ingredients, not as a kit. Different people make different wine from different grapes in different ways using different methods. All of which will affect the final volume. There ar...

This book is no longer in Print, it is a fantastic resource, so I thought it would be useful to reproduce sections of it here (as time permits...it's a long process for a slow typer! ) over 13000 words so far phew!

I will also covert it to a down-loadable file once it is completed So that it will be out in the public domain...it's just too valuable a resource to lose forever.

hope you find this useful....please let me have your feedback


Winemaking...

Fantastic tutorial by Pat cuthbert
moderator winepress.us
member of winesathome.co.uk and all round good guy
reproduced here with his kind permission



I KNOW you will find this useful



Hi all;

I started a couple of kits. I have some pics for you showing the steps so far and will show the rest as they occur.

First is checking my equipment. A lot of empty carboys as you can see.

Be...

This years Grapefest event will be held on Saturday September 21st (in Knottingley as ever)

YEAST FOR NEWBIES Yeast is important. If yeast only converted sugar to alcohol, you'd end up with something which tastes like alcoholic grape juice. The processes which take place are complex, and different yeast strains behave in different ways. We try to choose the strain which will affect our wine in a positive manner. There is a heck of a lot of information on this site (and others) about yeast, and for someone new to winemaking it can be difficult to extract meaningful advice from it all. P...

New to winemaking? Want simple, basic advice on which yeast strains to select? Look at this tutorial first.

For more comprehensive information, read on ...


from Jack Kellers fantastic website

http://winemaking.jackkeller.net

Red Star Active Dry Yeasts

Assmannshausen : Assmannshausen is a German yeast strain. Germany leads the world in yeast isolation and production. Assmannshausen is best suited for red wines. It...

All you ever needed to know about yeast starters Extract from Progressive Winemaking Peter Duncan and Bryan Acton Yeast starters are very easy to prepare and no difficulties should be encountered if the following directions are observed. A wine bottle is first sterilised with the stock (10%) sulphite solution mentioned in an earlier chapter and then thoroughly rinsed out with boiled water (cooled) to remove any residual sulphite. About a half a pint of must or an alternative basic starter med...