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Hiya Last year I made some sparkly elderflower, I was pretty pleased with it. I essentially made the wine and let it finish but not clear and added priming sugar. It was good but this year I would like more fizz. I added dextrose at a rate of 17g/l which is what I believe they use for the...

I have been looking at a lot of home brew recipes recently and I was thinking that they all seemed to have too much sugar. I thought they will all either end up as rocket fuel, or depending on the yeast used will end up sweet. My hydrometer looks like the one I have seen in almost every online...

Hi All CJJB has 2 raisin wine recipes in First Steps In Winemaking 1 has 3.5kg and no sugar, the other has 1kg and 1kg sugar. First of all has anybody tried these recipes and are they any good? I'm interested to make something which tastes like a sherry/Madeira/dessert wine. It says the...

Hi I am considering getting a 6 bottle beaverdale sauvignon blanc kit and have read through the instructions online. It states to shake the demijohn to Degas, then add finings. Do people actually follow these instructions? It seems strange to shake it up and mix it with all the...

I have a mead/melomel which also has died apricots and rose petals, it really fermented vigorously at first but now has stopped. I racked it off the sediment and the hydrometer reading was 1010. I added half a teaspoon of extra nutrients and some more D47 yeast but nothing. When adding the...

Hi I have had a few cases where my wine has been fermenting in the bucket vigorously then after 3 days since pitching the yeast it is completely finished before I have had a chance to transfer it. It usually happens with mead or elderflower where there aren't lots of fruit and it's all just...

Hi When adding sulphites at bottling I have read 2 different things. 1 method is to dose with sulphites then wait 24hrs then bottles. I'm guessing with this method a lot of the SO2 will have evaporated off. The other method is to add right before bottling, the theory being to keep the SO2...

Hi, Once fermentation is complete and the wine has been racked off the sediment and then degassed, does anyone know of a reason why the wine stabiliser (in the form a crushed campden tablet and potassium sorbate) cannot be added at the same time as finings? At the moment I am using Ritchies...

Hi I was wondering if you guys bother to dry your bottles before filling. I generally use a chlorine based sterilising solution then I rinse very thoroughly with a lot of cold tap water. I then just fill the bottles as I think what is the harm in a few drops of tap water. Reason I ask is...

I made some Elderflower Champagne about 2 months ago using John Wright's recipe from the guardian. I used dried Elderflowers and a bottle of Ritchies grape fruit concentrate and EC-1118 yeast. I put the dried Elderflowers in a pan of water which had just come off the boil and left them in there...

I recently read an article on making cider, up until now i've only made wine. The article started to use priming sugar or carbonation drops at bottling to make it fizzy, however it also states to add sulphites at bottling to stop it spoiling. Will the use of sulphites not impede the yeast...

I get the basic process of sparkling wine, so make a base wine and leave to clear. Then at bottling state add rehydrated yeast and some sugar but not sulphites or stabilisers. Leave to ferment in the bottle then go through the process of riddling and disgorging by leaving the bottles upside...

Hi I have a 250ml bottle of Ritchie's white grape juice concentrate. Does anybody know what the sugar content is or what it is equivalent to not concentrated? I have a recipe which states 1 litre of White grape juice. I know I could measure the sugar content with a hydrometer (might have to...