Introduce Yourselves here

[cellar rat]

Hello from VA

Hello to all. I am Gene from Virginia and have been making wine for the past 6 years. I started out with fruit wines and started making kit wines in addition to fruit. I have shiraz and chardonnay aging in the carboy awaiting bottling and a port wine in the later stages of secondary fermentation just waiting for the brandy!! I also have 5 gallons of blackberry in secondary. I will make a merlot and blend with the blackberry. I tried this blend last year and it turned out nicely. I have enjoyed looking around the forum and look forward to learning more about this interesting hobby.

[Hippie]

Hi barbarajean!

Welcome to the forum. Nice to have another winemaker aboard.

[Hippie]

Hi cellar rat. Welcome to the forum. I am surrounded by Brits and am glad to have another 'Homey' aboard the site!

Do you not like the blackberry as a standalone? I love blackberry wine, but I also have made a blackberry merlot 'mist type' wine that I liked alot. I am also a fan of plain merlot, but not the bone dry very acid ones. I like the Yellowtail brand very much. I have never made a Merlot kit or otherwise.

[paubin]

Introducing myself

Hello all, I've been making wines for numerous years now although I had taken a 2 year break until last year. I currently have strawberry rhubarb, rasberry, concord grape, citrus melomel, blueberry melomel bulk aging and resently bottled some blackberry. I look forward to picking your minds for new ideas and such.

Pete

[Hippie]

Welcome paubin!

[barbarajean]

Thanks to all for the welcomes. We seperated the good grapes from the chaff (over/under ripe or dodgy) then squeezed them through a pair of new (and sterilized) hold up tights until we had a gallon of juice we checked it with the hydrometer and it read 1.05 so we added 500g of caster sugar and some yeast and took another reading which was 1.085 i first put it straight into a demi jar and airlock, and left it overnight, but then realised it was bubbling over! so it is now in a bucket covered by a cloth. The red grapes we put in a fermenting bucket with the skins and pips and pressed them with a potato peeler (which seemed to work ok) we assumed (probably wrongly) the reading would be the same, so added the same amount of sugar and yeast. it seems to be frothing quite nicely.
Two questions though, should i, now the white is in a bucket stir it twice a day the same as i have been doing to the red? and what colour would you expect the white to be at this stage? Any help gratefully received.

[lockwood1956]

The white grape must at this stage will be anywhere fron clear to dark mustard in colour...so dont worry too much about it at the moment,,

The Red?...you are right...you were incorrect to assume the Specific gravity would be the same, its very unlikely that it was the same, best check them both again and tell us what they are at the moment...if they are the same now thren they would probably have been similar at the start, but its always best to test if you have the means to do so, and not guess.

Don't worry too much about stirring the white, and get it back into the demijohn under air;ock once the ferment settles a bit,
The red will need to have the cap of grape skins that will form on the top of the must kept moist by submerging it into the must 2 to 4 times a day, and once the S.G. of the must gets below about 1.020 then press the skins and remove then, putting the remaining juice into demijohn under airlock.

hope this helps
regards
Bob

[lockwood1956]

Hello and welcome Paubin

regards
Bob

[barbarajean]

Hydrometer reading

Thanks for that Bob-i'm having trouble testing the red must-i cant get a sample without the skins and pips, so the hydrometer isn't able to float, it just sits on the top of the sample, am i doing it wrong? Thanks for the advice-i was a bit perturbed at the colour of the white-'mustard' is right!

[heeby]

try using a turkey baster and a sieve and put the sample into a trial jar to take the sg reading
mark

[Mamgiowl]

Nice to meet you, paubin. Looking forward to getting to know you

[barbarajean]

Thanks heeby-its a bit messy but i think i've got it now-the reading was just under 1.09 which i think is ok-i was just a bit nervous about the lid being off and touching it too much, because of contamination (i made sure i sterilized everything first)

[heeby]

apparently according to my mentor you dont need to be that careful with sanitising every thing just clean good housekeeping is ok
mark

[lockwood1956]

I think you can go crazy and get all hung up on too much sanitation

Remember you can't sterilize anything, sterilising is the 100% eradication of all living organsims

What we do is cleaning (removing obvious lumps and marks)

And Sanitising (getting it as sterile as we can with the tools we have)


As long as things are clean and sanitised and you do your best not to introduce spoilage organisms then thats all you can do.

regards
Bob

[barbarajean]

Thanks for all the advice-i thought the drinking would be the best bit, but i can't believe i've almost run home from work to watch froth!!