Making Homemade Wine and Beer

You are browsing the archives of 2005 December.

16 cups apples, cored and chopped
2 pounds raisins
1 cinnamon stick (optional)
4 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 teaspoon yeast nutrients
1 1/2 teaspoon acid blend
1/2 teaspoon pectic enzyme
1 campden tablet
1 gallon water, hot
1 package wine yeast (for 1 to 5 gallons)

Place fruit in primary fermentor. Pour boiling water [...]

We all have used acid blend when making wines to raise the total acid content to and acceptable level. Usually, acid blend is a blend of 50% tartaric acid, 25% citric acid and 25% malic acid.Ever wonder what those acids are, what they are used for and where they come from? I did a little [...]

We all have the occasional bad batch of wine and wonder where we went wrong.  Usually, it is not paying attention to the details or some of the very basics are missing.  So here are a few articles that go over the most common mistakes and how to avoid them.
 
Winemaking’s Top Ten Mistakes You Can [...]

This is the first time since I have been making wine that I experienced a musty looking cork.  It came from my last bottle of Apple Wine which was made in 2003. The ironic thing, is that I had posted about switching to all screw tops instead of corks because of this reason.
 
There could be a [...]