John's Journal

1/29/2010 Finally getting around to making my wine. This is my cave in the basement where I do my Neanderthal think. I use two carboys one for primary fermentation and one for secondary fermentation. The blue band around the first carboy is a carboy heat tape and helps to maintain the wine at 75 deg f for ideal fermenting.

Mt first batch will be Black Raspberry Merlot and when it is bottled, I will be making Green Apple Riesling. I should end up with nearly 60 750 ml bottles of premium wine for app. $2 per bottle.

Each kit contains all the items to produce six gal of wine

01/30/2010 Here the primary fermentation is on the way and after the fermentation starts to slow I will bring the fluid level up to the bottom of the carboy neck. After five to seven days, I will rack the wine into the second carboy, leaving most of the sediment behind, to complete the fermentation.

This is an air lock that sits on top of the carboy. It lets the CO2 escape and blocks any air from getting inside the carboy. I will update this post after each step in the process including the bottling. As usual all comments are welcome. John

02/04/2010 The primary fermentation is complete and I have racked the wine into the second carboy. The second carboy has been placed back up on the bench with the air lock and heat tape installed. It will continue fermenting for another ten days before the stabilizing and fining. As usual all comments are welcome. John