Recent content by nlkips

Thanks guys. I will pick up some of that cleaner when I go to the hbs next time

I've come across some of this stuff at work used for a water treatment unit. Could I use this for cleaning bottles/kegs at home or should I be wary of it. On the label it says "repackaged from food grade material."

Ok back to the cab with what I thought was having some problems with. After 10 days in the carboy and not seeing any activity and the sg. staying exactly the same I starting to wonder if something is wrong. Do I wait longer and check again or does it sound like the yeast has done nothing for...

Didn't seem to be any issues and I believe it degassed after doing this for a couple hours as a balloon I placed over the top eventually stopped inflating. Todays work will be making a trolly for moving the carboys around instead of relying on the handle.

So it's time to add some stuff to the Riesling and degas it. I had a broken spoon and some zap straps and figured I would enlarge the hole in the end and put 2 straps through for degassing and I think it turned out well. Here is what it looked like after the first minute of whipping it back and...

Will do. My dad has a couple kits he did in the past and whenever I make it home each year I always snag a few. Got one in my wine rack right now that he bottled in Jan 09. It's absolutely amazing along with all his other wines.

Ahhh now the barolo is overflowing out the bucket. Cleaned it up and removed the heat belt. Is there anything I should do or just leave it be?

Ok thats good to hear. I just haven't seen any activity or a bubble on the wine so I was a little nervous. If it continues this way I can assume degassing will be a breeze or am I wrong? Thanks again everyone for all the help as I get my feet wet. Talked the lady into a niagara mist kit to...

Not sure if I messed up the cab at this point. It is sitting in the carboy in the secondary fermentation stage for the past 5 days and nothing is going on. The same as if it was water in there. To give you and idea of what went on up to this point here is what happened up until now. The kit...

Yeah all of the above Definitely one of the best hobbies I've had so far. Should get better in a couple months when I get to enjoy the later part of it

So checked the sg and it was 1.000 so I transferred it over to the carboy and it is smelling great. A couple more days and the red should be ready to get transferred over and I might grab another kit since I got one carboy left to use and all my buckets are freed up. I'm pretty pumped and...

Your telling me. One thing I'm going to look into doing is carbonating a white and having it on tap for the summer months

Haha no worries and the acronyms is just something else I'll learn as my experience grows. Great advice and I will check out that site. This kit is some what in a rush or I should say recommended time from the kit maker so the lady can start drinking this instead of retail bottles at $15-20...

I will give that a shot on the next kit of riesling or whatever white we pick up. I have kept it up next to the cab to keep the temps close to what is in the instructions so with 2-3 days before the transfer to the carboy I'm just going to keep it there. Also, I'm not sure what a Brit is for...

So I popped and left both lids loose after i stirred the cab the other night. Last night the cab had a nice layer of foam over the top and I could here a lot of gas exchange. Gave it a nice gentle stirring for a couple minutes and place the cover loosely back on top. Decide to have a peak at...