Craft Forum / Winemaking / Brewing / Winemaking / June 2008

Thanks again for all of the advice on my previous post,which will take
some digesting,but very informative.My technique so far has been as
follows.
1.Early in the summer I start taking out lateral side shoots so that I

I am fairly new to growing my own vines in England,and am looking for
a site to find out some of the details of pruning the vines during the
summers growth.In paticular I wish to know how to deal with over
vigorous growth,and whether to remove side shoots or laterals during

Does anyone out there grow Chambourcin? vines.
I would really like to try growing this vine.  If you could send me
cuttings this winter after pruning I would be glad to paypal you
reasonable postage (to Vancouver BC Canada.)

Irrespective of your gender, what are 1 or 2 most memorable wine
drinking experiences you've had so far with (a minimum of 2 or more)
women and please elaborate on what made it so special compared to
other drink - socialising you've done ?

My father used to make wine (he's sadly no longer capable of that or
much else these days), and I've found a couple of demijohns with
labels dated 20-25 years ago. We're clearing the house and this is
definitely the last of his own wine.

I have 2 new carboys in my collection that i just bought. They are
used and are really really really nasty. They have caked on residue of
some kind.
I have tried everything i know..  scrubbing with that "L" shaped

I stopped by the local fruit and veggie market today and
scored 26 pounds of VERY ripe pears for $3.00.
Couldn't let a deal like that slide by.
I got one of Jack Keller's recipes, cored and de-stemmed

A while back someone posted about using Oxyclean as a cleaner
sterilizer.  He also mentioned using it as a spray on his grapes against
fungal activity.  Was it Oxyclean or Oxiclean?  They are very different.
 Oxyclean is from a Canadian company and Oxiclean is from a US company.

On May 18th I added geletin to fine the win I made (out of Concord
juice) and it is still cloudy: it was much brighter before the
fining attempt and I should have left it alone.
Did I just destroy my wine?

Hey there,
I recently embarked upon winemaking and have about 6 demijohns
bubbling away. However, one gallon that i made with Dandelions petals
and some pineapple juice (i was feeling adventurous!) has devloped a

I'm currently experimenting with a few of the higher end wine kits that come
with wine skins or crushendo. These kits come with a mesh filter to place
over the end of the siphon to help filter out the solids when racking. There
was an awful lot left at the bottom of the tub when ...

I am looking for a recipe for sweet red wine. I don't care for the dry
too much. Anybody like to share your recipe with me?
Mac

Has anyone had experience in producing their own labels on commercial
products, such as Avery labels.  I can find lots of templates and
software to make the design and printing easy.  What I'm most interested
in is how difficult they are to remove.

I just started my 2nd 6 monthly experimental recipe for 'dried
elderberry & frozen black forest fruits' a 10 gallon affair using two
primaries.  Slightly annoyingly one of the straining bags full of
fruit split after defrosting and before water additions.  I managed to

For those interested I just posted the recipe for rose-syrup on my weblog
and I will also introduce it here.
The syrup is sold in Indonesian (called toko's over here in Holland) shops
but can be made easily by yourself.