I was just wondering if there are any wine makers on the board? I started making my own wine last october and been loving it since. I have a nice batch or Blueberry wine that I will dive into for Turkey day next week. May spark a special stogie for that day too.

I got a buddy who makes his own wine... one dixie cup and your set for the evening LOL...

Hog

I made a batch of cherry wine back in '98. I still have several bottles left. It turned out quite well. I've been wanting to make some draft cider for a long time, but haven't had the spare time. Maybe someday...

Yep,
Got 60 gal of peach in secondary. 20 gal. of some experimental red grape wine, I snagged the grapes from the University experimental farm down the road. Same source as the peaches. I just bottled 10 gal. of strawberry wine, and have a couple of weeks left on 20 gal. of mulberry wine. Then back to beer.
Later
Dave (A.K.A. Homebrew)

wow Homebrew,

I thought having my 1 gallon of strawberry , 2 gallons of blueberry wine, and 1 gallon of banana wine(yes banana, smells awesome haven't tasted yet) was alot. As of right now I store all my stuff in gallon jugs. I tried bottling with the mushrooms corks but that ended all bad. 4 gallons of white zin for my wife all over the basement floor. 😞 I need to get me a corker.

Homebrew,
Isn't secondary a by product of cleaning your still ?

I know a guy that has some moonshine, I beleive it's the result of a third cook off, almost copper in color.
It's some pretty bad sh*t !!

Cuda

Nope, In wine making you have a primary and secondary fermentation container. The primary is where the yeast does its intial magic. Then you move all the wine to a secondary to seperate it from the must and any dead yeast. What I do with the secondary is let my wine sit a month then rack it off into another secondary to yet again remove any sediment and dead yeasts. Then it gets a 3 month nap before I rack a final time and if the wine is clear and not cloudy I will seal the bottle for a longer nap, anywhere from 3-6 months. Depends on what I make.

I am sure I missed some steps but like cigars I am new at wine making also. Only got a year under my belt on that. But in that year I have learned the importance or the term "good things come to those who wait" 🙂

and homebrew sorry for jacking the thread there. Sometimes I cant shutup about wine making. Just to much fun.

Dave email me.

dz130 at aol

You don't cork wine until all fermentation is done!!
If it popped your corks, you were bottling way to soon..
If you want to bottle a sweet wine like White Zin you either have to kill off all of the yeast with a chemical or run it through a .5 micron filter.
I have done both. Try adding sorbistat-k (Potassium sorbate) at about 1/20 of 1%, it will stop all "good" wine yeasts. If you are a wild yeaster (brave fool),
let it get just about the sweetness you want, chill it to 29F then run it under pressure through a winefilter.

I make 10 to 20 gallons of wine a year, and about 100 Gallons of beer. Then there is the barley wine, but that is only about 10 or 15 Gallons.

Good luck on the blueberry... it is one I have never been satisfied with. I hope you added a portion of under ripe grapes or some wine acids to the blueberries.
Spiced apple, peach, concord grape all work out pretty good for the home vinter.
Banana is one I have not tried ( or even thought of).
best of luck