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WineMaking FAQ



Covers various aspects of home winemaking, including techniques, tips, equipment, possible ingredients, various types of wine, maturity tips, and trouble shooting.

This is the FAQ for rec.crafts.winemaking. If you have any additions, deletions, corrections, comments, questions or the like, please direct them to r.c.w. or Don Buchan at malak&pobox.com.

Copyright notice:

Copyright 1995-1999 by Don Buchan, all rights reserved. This FAQ may be distributed to any USENET newsgroup, on-line service, BBS or any other means, electronic or physical (such as, but not limited to, floppy diskettes and printouts) as long as:

A) it is distributed in its entirety, B) no fee is charged to anyone: i) downloading this file beyond nominal online fees, or ii) receiving the information beyond nominal format charges, C) it is not distributed for financial gain. To be included in commercial collections or compilations (except online services as allowed above), express permission from Don Buchan (malak&pobox.com) (&=@) must be obtained.

I have granted permission to Better Winemaking by Cybercom Publications to print excepts from this document. I only receive a free copy of the magazine, and have donated the value of the yearly subscription fee to my church's Minister's Discretionary Fund.

Academic or professional use and accuracy:

In the case of academic use, follow the guidelines set out at your institution for referencing electronic texts, provided that my name, Don Buchan, and email ID, malak&pobox.com (&=@), are referenced as editor/compilor. I suggest as title "FAQ List for Usenet Usegroup rec.crafts.winemaking". An essay on suggested referencing guidelines is available at http://clever.net/quinion/words/citation.htm or by email from michael&quinion.demon.co.uk (&=@)

I am not an oenologist, nor is this text guaranteed to be 100% accurate. No liability or warranty, express or implied, is assumed by the editor or contributors. If you see an error, please send it to malak&pobox.com (&=@)

This text covers the actual procedures of making wine to varying degrees, as well as various approaches, techniques, and philosophies about winemaking. These are sometimes going to contradict each other -- remember, different people wrote various sections. While the editor has made an effort to bring the whole thing together, these contradictions were left in to allow for the numorous methods of reaching the same goal: Good to better to even great wine. The caveat to all this? Read the whole document as much as possible. There are various sections that contain loads of information that perhaps in and of themselves perhaps are better contained in other sections but are left where they are.

If you want more information of a basic nature, request the primers mentioned in the NET RESOURCES posting for wine & winemaking.

Editing & spelling conventions:

The editor has tried to edit for brevity in some cases, therefore contributions may be shorter than submitted or as originally posted in the newsgroup. When used, the word "I" is the contributor, not necessarily the editor. Text in {} is the original question.

British (and Canadian) spelling conventions are used.

Measurement conventions:

An attempt has been made to include imperial, American and metric measurements.

When a reference to a gallon is made, it will be identified as an imperial or American gallon, and its equivalent in the other size is made as well in litres. In this text, a gallon of wine is usually an imperial gallon (4.5 L, 1.19 USG) and a gallon jug is usually 1.06 USG (4 L, 0.89 imp. gal.).

Credits

Troubleshooting -- Can be found in the seperate posting TROUBLESHOOTING for wine & winemaking

Net Resources -- Can be found in the seperate posting NET RESOURCES for wine & winemaking.

-01 Newsgroup Charter
Name: rec.crafts....
-02 Wine Making Definitions A-F
Not all these terms appear elsewhere in this FAQ; but those that don'...
-03 Wine Making Definitions H-R
Hydrometer: A glass bulb with a weight in the bulb, a narrow stick ...
-04 Wine Making Definitions S-W
-05 How Is Wine Made?
First, for those who are expecting a quick answer on how to make ...
-06 Yeast Part 1
Here's a list of different kinds of yeast often used with ...
-07 Yeast Part 2
-08 Yeast Suggestions
Some suggestions (depending on styles)...
-09 Possible Ingredients
Besides the basic grape juice that most winemakers use, the ...
-10 Btw, Can I Use Jam?
In principle, you could. Recipes you may come across for jam wines ...
-11 The Recipe Calls For Tannin. What'S The Conversion Dry To Liquid?
The conversion is 1/4 teaspoon dry tannin equals 0.338140227 ...
-12 What Equipment Is Required
Standard Kit (all necessary):...
-13 Sucrose Vs. Corn Sugar
Both will ferment equally well in your wine, and usually may be ...
-14 Kits Vs. Grapes Or Fruit
Kits vary in quality, usually according to price: The more expensive ...
-15 What Are The Usual Sizes Used In Home Winemaking?
The US and Britain (and some of the Commonwealth) use the ...
-16 Barrels
Why bother with a barrel?...
-17 New And Used Barrels
Look in a commercial listings phone book for oak barrels, ...
-18 Barrel Care
Usually empty unused barrels can be stored indefinitely. Once ...
-19 Toasting Level In Barrels
The level of toasting appropriate to a wine would be based on what ...
-20 Sanitation
Yeast tends to beat out most competitors because of its ability to ...
-21 Procedure
Prepare the yeast. You can either start from a package of yeast or ...
-22 Why Am I Adding The Bentonite At The Beginning? How Much Do I Putin? Where Do I Get It?
{As I understand it, bentonite is a clearing agent. However, in ...
-23 Egg White Clearing
{How is egg white clearing accomplished?}...
-24 Higher Alcohol Levels
If you wish to increase your alcohol content, such as for ports,...
-25 Sparkling Your Wine
Traditional method:...
-26 Ice Wine
Icewine is basically a very sweet desert wine where the grape juice ...
-27 Different Kinds Of Fermentation Used In Winemaking
Red wine fermentation: the trick with red wine grapes is to hit a ...
-28 Acid Balance: Why Is A Low Ph (3.0 To 3.5) Important To Winemaking?
For three reasons:...
-29 Acid Balance: How Do I Relate Grams Per Litre Of Acid To Ph?
That is because it doesn't relate. The two are completely different. ...
-30 Chillproofing
Tartaric acid crystals may fall out of solution to form a white,...
-31 Do All Wines Contain Sulphites?
All wines do contain sulphur compounds, and almost invariably ...
-32 How Much Sulphite Is Needed?
Neither SO2 nor sorbate kills yeasts; they inhibit them, and ...
-33 Topping Up Your Wine
Topping up your wine is the process of making your carboy as full ...
-34 Bulk Aging
There are varying opinions on the exact effect of bulk aging on wine;...
-35 Will My Wine Last?
{I heard that home-made wine starts going bad after two years. Is ...
-36 How To Know When A Wine Is Ready To Drink
The first thing to remember is that wine-tasting (and therefore when ...
-37 Vinometers
{Could someone tell me the principle of how a vinometer works?}...
-38 How To Measure Alcohol Levels In Your Wine
To calculate Alcohol by Volume: Subtract the last reading from ...
-39 What'S The Best Paper And Adhesive To Use For Labels?
Fist it is important to remember that the label A) only identifies ...
-40 Bottles & Corks:
Any glass bottle without defect that will hold a cork firmly in ...
-41 Corkers
Many styles of corkers exist and each can have advantages ...
-42 How About Distilling My Wine?
Distillation is basically heating an alcoholic beverage to the ...
-43 What Are Good References For Winemaking?
For the beginner:...
-44 What Is [Insert Wine Type Here] Like?
The first and best piece of advice is to try a bottle of that ...
-45 What Kind Of Water Should I Use?
When making wine that calls for water, care should be taken not to ...
-46 Are Elderberries Toxic? How About {Insert Fruit Here}?
Debate has come about with respect to whether or not making wine ...
-47 Kosher Wines/Winemaking/Beer/Beermaking
I (Don Buchan) contacted Rabbi Jaffe at the Jewish Community Council ...
-48 What Amount Of Grapes Should Be Used?
{Someone is being generous enough to give me some wine grapes and ...
-49 How Can I Contact Presque Ile Wine Cellars Or Anyone Else?
This is not a commercial endorsement by the editor/compilor or most (...
-50 Does Anybody Have A Recipe For {Insert Wine Type Here}?
-51 Removing Carbonation From Wine
The easiest way to remove carbonation is to filter your wine using ...
-52 Cleaning Out Dirty Bottles, Carboys And The Like
After a while, it is quite possible that your glass carboys ...
-53 Why Am I Getting Headaches?
It has to do with histamines and NOT with sulphite. This of ...
-54 I Want To Make Some Sherry. Do I Require A Special Type Of Yeast?
In 'fino' sherry Flor Yeast forms a floating film on the surface of ...
-55 Sweetening Wine
There are many ways of sweetening your wine....
-56 "Strengthening" A Wine
{I have about 240 litres of a light red which saw insufficent ...
-57 Humidity & Storage
Some debate exists about proper humidity levels required in storage....
-58 Knowing When To Pick Your Grapes
{Is there any way of determining the right time to harvest grapes ...
-59 Are Any Other Winemaking Topics Covered Somewhere?
Go to http://www.pobox.com/~malak/mailwine.zip. Don has been ...
-60 Cold Stabilization
{I am making a wine from a kit - Pinot Noir from Cuvee ...
-61 How Much Pectic Enzyme Should I Use?
1/2 teaspoon per gallon of pectic enzyme (powder form) is an ...
-62 Getting Rid Of Excessive Pulp
{I made the mistake of not racking off the fruit pulp before I went ...
-63 What If I Don'T Have Any Yeast Nutrient?
{Does anyone know what I can add to my musts so that I can avoid ...
-64 Arresting Fermentation
In order to stop a fermentation while a wine is still sweet,...
-65 Removing Corks From Bottles
{Do you know how to get corks out without breaking the bottle?}...
-66 Your Friendly Hydrometer
Hydrometers are calibrated to read pure water at 1.000 at typically ...







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