The rewards and frustrations of home winemaking

I noticed that quite a bit of sediment fell out of the home merlots, so I decided it was time to rack them off again and test them for pH and acid levels.  I also figured the Free SO2 levels had dropped (I give up on the test strips) and added ¼ tsp Kmeta to […]

The Yakima Synergy is clear enough that I’m not going to filter it for bottling.  It came out great!  I did leave about 700 mL at the bottom of the carboy that had some sediment and poured it off into a separate bottle to clear a little more.  Tasting notes: Very faint nose of apricots […]

I’ve been wanting to try some battonage on a wine kit for a while, since I first read about the technique.  Battonage basically involves leaving the wine on the fine lees for an extended period of time, and stirring the lees up every few days to extract additional amino acids and mannoproteins from the yeast.  […]

Since Dave has already drunk half of his bottled wine, I asked if he had any acetone problems, and he said no.  So, I checked one of the small bottles of extra merlot, and was very happy that there was no acetone odor or taste there.  OK, then something happened to the carboy.  I checked […]

I used a 5 micron inline filter to bottle the Argentinian Trio today, and I noticed that the last 2 bottles had paper floating in them!  Total bummer.  I’m not sure if I didn’t set something up right, or what.  Oh well, I’ll mark the corks on these and keep them for home consumption.  The […]

With all of the carboys from the barrel wine plus the kit wines I have bulk aging, the wine has now overflowed out of the shower and into the guest room.  Reservations are now required!  The shower is also quite busy. We busted out a little sample of the merlot from the carboy, expecting it […]

I tossed the juice bag from the Riesling, but then thought I should go ahead and send an email to Winexpert to see if the precipitate is a bad sign, or no big deal.  I have to say, I’ve been very happy with their customer service – they answered me the next day!  Linda from […]

It was time to rack off the cabernet sauvignon kit into a carboy.  I noticed a distinct aroma of bananas, just like we smelled when the cabernet sauvignon grapes were fermenting.  The color is great, this is going to be a pretty decent wine for the money. Next I set up to start the Alsatian […]

We’ve been trying to get organized to bottle this wine for a while now, and we finally set a day and got it done.  I brought my portion of the wine home in carboys and a few miscellaneous bottles.  Dave and Josh wanted theirs bottled, so that’s what we did.  Dave did a few blending […]

The SG on the Yakima Synergy is at 0.994, although it’s still bubbling away in there.  After racking, it’s not very pretty!  But, it’s early in the game, there’s still plenty of stirring ahead before it’s expected to clear. In the meantime, Dave bought a cabernet sauvignon kit last year, at the same time that […]