Berry wine

So this year was my first harvest of my young vineyard. I hand destemmed and put the grapes in 1 gallon freezer bags and froze them. I had to freeze until later due to time constraints. Each bag of grapes weighed around 2 lbs on average.
My research suggests that it takes about 90 lbs of grapes to make a 6 gallon batch of wine. I had 46 lbs of this one black grape, so I bought some smaller carboys.
On crush day I had the 46 lbs thawed along with 5 lbs of blackberries I tossed in. I crushed them with a potato masher and put skins and all in mesh bags in 6 gallon fermenters, leaving some headspace. 2 fermenters had 4.5 gallons of must and the other had 5 gallons.
After 3 days I pressed the juice and moved the juice to carboys. To my surprise it filled 2 - 6 gallon carboys. I never topped off with anything, it’s 100 % juice.
How did I get twice as much juice with 1/2 the weight of grapes as what most resources say I needed?

I’m trying to make apple cider wine after getting some from a nearby orchard. It has been a week since I added the yeast and it looks like this (see image attached). I’m thinking it needs to go for longer, but I’m not sure how long, especially since the sediment is still floating and hasn’t sunk. Any tips and advice would be appreciated.

The wine is just apple cider and sugar. With pectic enzyme, acid blend, yeast nutrient, and a campden tablet

Hey all,

I am done with secondary fermentation, and I’ve been spending the last three weeks trying to clear up the wine.

Last year with this same wine, I had no issues clearing it with bentonite. I have no idea what changed this time around, other than I had more pounds of muscadines.

I used bentonite clay (16g) for 3 gallons of wine. Let that sit for 2 weeks. That didn’t do much. So I stirred up the bentonite again and this time cold crashed for another week.

It’s just not clearing up.

I know that it’s okay if it’s a bit cloudy, but I really do prefer to have the look of a mostly clear wine.

What should I try next?

Imagine getting fined or going to jail just for freezing grape juice dead yeast sugar and alcohol all things found naturally why is it illegal to freeze distill alcohol?

I am conducting a winemaking/fermentation process for a school activity and my group decided to go with watermelon as a wine. Currently, I am at the 7th day of the fermentation process and the active bubbling as well as the production of co2 is done. What should I do after this state as I am kinda stuck I within the process.

I didn't have an airlock for the secondary fermentation of my wine, so I wrapped the container with plastic wrap and poked a small hole in it. Then, I loosely closed the lid (it’s more like just resting it on top than actually sealing it).

Did I make any mistakes?

I'm new to wine making, and am about 2 weeks into this batch. Just siphoned the wine into the carboy a couple days ago and now there is stuff floating on top of the wine. I have been sanitizing everything that comes in contact with the wine. This doesn't look like wild yeast. I used 5 campden tablets the day before I added the yeast to kill off the wild yeast. Should I be worried?

Image

Hello everyone. This is my first time making wine, I used grapes from my garden. I tried to be super clean, I disinfected everything with chemipro oxi. Now there is this white layer on the wine. I don't know what to do. I now added a little sulfite and closed it off again. It's now a month after the first fermentation was done. Then I put the wine in these bottles.

Does anyone know what this white layer is and if it is bad? And how to solve it?

Thank you in advance!

Hello all

First and foremost I am just gonna say right now that I have no experience in winemaking prior to this. I'm only making wine for a project in my Biology class where we are to make wine from local fruits or vegetables only up to its primary fermentation period. I chose to make wine from oranges as per recommendation from my classmate, who also has no experience in winemaking. I made one batch of more-or-less 2 liters of orange wine.

Additionally, it was my Biology teacher's instruction to present the wine for tasting after its primary fermentation period as having to wait months for a finished bottle of wine for a project would seem too tedious.

The process in which I prepared the wine was the following:

1. Zested 6 medium oranges and 1 lemon, placed zests in a cheesecloth along with around half a handful of raisins. Tied the cheesecloth with a string to keep the contents in.
2. Juiced the oranges and the lemon, removed pulp and seeds, transfer into separate container.
3. Poured 2 liters of filtered tap water in a large pot over medium flame to simmer, added 3 cups of sugar and let it melt.
4. Took the pot off heat and let it cool down to room temperature.
5. Using a large stainless-steel pot, I poured the 2 liters of sugar water in, along with the orange and lemon juice and the cheesecloth with orange and lemon zests, and raisins.
6. Stirred the mixture well
7. Measured Original Gravity, added more sugar, measured 1.074
8. After letting the mixture settle for a bit, I added just under a gram of Lalvin EC-1118 yeast to the container.
9. Covered the container with a sheet of plastic cling wrap with a small hole at the center to let gas escape, dry cheese cloth fabric was layered over the plastic wrap to prevent dust or insects from getting into the wine.
10. I let the yeast sit for a few minutes, then transferred the container to my bedroom, which is airconditioned to 24-26 degrees celsius during 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm in the afternoon, then 7:00 pm to 3:00 am in the early morning. During the time when air conditioning was off, the wine was left in room temperature conditions, which in my country is around 30-33 degrees celsius.
11. I let the wine ferment for 12 days, where everyday I took a sample of the wine out to measure its specific gravity. The measurements are listed below.

OG/1st day = 1.074
2nd day = 1.070
3rd day = 1.050
4th day = 1.034
5th day = 1.022
6th day = 1.012
7th day = 1.002
8th day = 0.992
9th day = 0.986
10th day = 0.980
11th day = 0.980
12th day = 0.980
Primary fermentation finished.

Here is where my problem comes in. After primary fermentation period, I was told to cold crash my wine by separating the wine from the yeast cake on the bottom into a secondary container using a large plastic syringe with a long plastic tube, sealing the top with plastic wrap, then placing the container in the refrigerator to settle for around a week or so. Which so I followed.

As I transferred the wine into its secondary container, I decided to taste it to see how it was doing.

What I tasted was something almost like seawater. I obviously couldn't let the taste of that linger in my mouth and promptly spat it out.

I honestly didn't expect that taste to come from wine, I tried searching online for any reason to why it tasted like that, only to come out more confused than when I started. Some said that the saltiness was normal for wine at that stage, and that I should continue to cold crash it for its flavors to really pop out. Others said that the taste was due to suspended minerals in the wine because of the water I used. Some said it could be because of the yeast, others say its because of the type of fruit I used..

I am very confused to why my post primary fermentation wine tastes like sea water. I would appreciate it if somebody gave me a straightforward reason to why my wine tastes like this and what I can do to fix it, IF it can be fixed, in that sense.

I only have about 9 days left till my wine presentation, so time-sensitive solutions are much more appreciated

I tried to write my process as detailed as possible but I can't guarantee that everything I said was as accurate as when I really experienced it.

Again, I am only a student with absolutely no prior winemaking experience. If some of my procedures were unnecessary, out-of-place, or straight botched, I apologize in advance.

If you have any questions about my procedure, I'll try my best to answer them.

Thank you

I have a batch of peach plum wine going with lalvin71b i pitched it on sunday and when i stirr it its very obviously bubling but isee nothingg in my airlock

I'm making wine using a fruit that only exists here in Brazil: jaboticaba. I'm using Red Star's Côte de Blanc (probably not the ideal choice, but I'm using what I had at hand). The mash fermented for 14 days, I separated them, added some sugar because I felt there was still room to raise the alcohol content and now it's in a plastic bucket with an air lock.

I bought a barrel (jequitibá rosa, a Brazilian wood usually used for ageing cachaça) and it arrived today. Thing is, I can't get it open to wet the wood, the peg's stuck real good. Any tips on how to do it without damaging either? It's stuck real good!

Hello!
I am somewhat new to brewing, and I want to make a gallon of wine with the local wild Concord grapes.
My question:
Is there anything I need to know brewing with wild grapes, that would be different than brewing with store bought or farmed produce?

Thank you!

Hi all, first time taking winemaking in my own hands with my father and Claude:). We currently have 50 Regent vines ( 200 vines in total for experimentation) in Belgium next to Antwerp. We are trying to make a fruity, light red and a pet-nat. Doing 10% whole bunch and the rest consists out of almost whole berries. Feedback or opinions are welcome ! Cheers.

This is my second batch I’ve made but the first to get these specks.
They appeared after racking the wine to secondary when fermentation stopped, and I added campden, potassium sorbate, and some more blueberry juice because there was a lot of headspace after I removed the solids.
Is this wild yeast? Spoilage yeast? Mold? I’m kind of confused because abv should be around 11%

UPDATE: after leaving the bottle out at room temp for an hour or so, the dots dissolved pretty quickly. Paired with the comments and a little research, it seems campden tablets don’t dissolve well in cold temps. Thanks for the advice.

Officially started my apple wine yesterday. Will be pitching yeast this evening. I'm using appx 15lbs of apples that was cooked in a roaster at appx 200 degrees for almost 24 hours. The apples were being used to make apple butter but were not the right type.

Liquid level sitting at about 4.5 gallons. Added about 3-3.5 gal of water with 8lb of sugar. Potential ABV is 12.5%

If nothing else... it smells amazing lol. Already has cinnamon, clove and vanilla in it.

Yesterday, in one afternoon, I harvested, crushed, and pressed 80 pounds of what I believe are Steuben grapes into about 4 or 5 gallons of wine. The juice sat at about 1.070, so I chaptalized up to 1.090.

I'm curious if anyone has any experience with ICV D47. Apparently, one of the ways to use it is to leave the wine on the fine lees for an extended period of time in order to develop mouthfeel and flavour, but I don't seem to find any information on how that works, whether it works well in home brewing, etc. Anyone have any advice for me?

Help! I’ve got a fruit wine I call Jamsey, made from mixed preserves (cherry, blackcurrant, blueberry, strawberry), juice and sugar. Fermented originally with 71B + nutrient, racked in July and left since.

It tastes good but is very sweet. Gravity has been stuck around 1.070 across multiple readings.

Annoyingly I didn’t take an OG, so I don’t know the current ABV. tried restarting one 4L test batch with EC-1118. Rehydrated it and gradually acclimatised it with increasing amounts of Jamsey. The starter was visibly very active, but five days after pitching it into the demijohn: still ~1.070.

I’ve now racked that test batch off the old lees and left the rest untouched. Need to see if that moves the needle no it

What would you try next? pH check? Nutrient + another EC-1118 restart? Something else?

Still learning, so interested in what more experienced winemakers would do from here. 🍷

I wrote a more detailed account on my Substack if you have other questions/ left stuff out:

https://homebrewwithollie.substack.com/p/jamsey-the-wine-that-wont-bloody?r=62v1xi&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

I have 4 gallons of excess (partially fermented) of Tempranillo. I ran out of carboys... Too bad.

I was planning on dumping in some apple vinegar with mother. What else should I do? What should I look for on pH for safety?

We left a lot of fruit on the vines at the winery I work at so I harvested 35lbs of Grenache with the goal of producing a Banyuls style dessert wine.

Initial brix was 27°. I intend to add 70% ethanol at about 10-12° to bring the alcohol up to about 16% and leave it on skins until I have my desired extraction.

This should produce a case or so, give or take. My plan is to press, rack, then move it into individual clear glass rosé bottles for aging outside.

My questions begin here:

1. Obviously the point of Banyuls is to produce an oxidative, maderized wine, so would I add KMBS at any point post-fermentation? I have trouble wrapping my head around how for 12 months it won't turn into vinegar or produce off flavors without KMBS. But at the same time the KMBS would just immediately bind to oxidative by-products and prevent said oxidation to some degree.

2. In images of Banyuls aging (such as the one provided) the jars have loose fitting caps on them. Are the jars properly sealed in any way or are these caps on there solely to prevent insects and what not from entering while still allowing oxygen?

Any advice is appreciated, thanks!