Thread: Homemade Country Wine Production

Originally Posted by Slab

Do you dry the carboys out, or do you leave some sanitizing solution in them when storing them?

I leave them upside down on a Carboy drying stand till it is dry first. The big 6.5gal glass Fermenter I turn upside down in a plastic Ice Cream container it just happens to fit, using it for a makeshift stand till it gets well along drying. After I have to bring it in the house to finish drying before adding the cling wrap. Wine Making can be streamlined, I'm still figuring that part out.

Just a quick picture of the 2 wine racks filling up.

Looks good. Wasn’t there a purple label? Blueberry I think it was.

Wow, that looks very nice!

Originally Posted by SuperDave336

Looks good. Wasn’t there a purple label? Blueberry I think it was.

The Bluegill AKA Blueberry gets a Royal Blue Metallic seal, Tripletail gets a Burgundy Metallic seal, Raz-A-Rita gets a Black Metallic seal, Lemon - Yellow, Satsuma - Orange, Mayhaw-Fuji Apple I bought a really nice rich Red Metallic (next bottling task). I have purple seals, kinda saving them for the Candy Heart Plurry wine. I have Sweet Treat and Fruit Punch Plurry trees too. Numerous Pluots, Plums, Apricots, Nectarines, etc. The Tripletail is again my best wine for the second year in a row. The blends can add a complexity and balanced fruit wine. The Raz-A-Rita is a blend too but it's Ok right now (needs another year to mellow) but not great like the Tripletail of the same age.

Sounds awesome.

Fermenting in winter slows the yeast down extracting more flavor than if you allow the yeast to burn through the sugars without munching on pulp and skins along the way. All the wine was bulk aged for 1 year in Italian glass carboys to further slow fermentation before bottling. Now the waiting game (if possible) is to wait another year before drinking. The late freeze last spring wiped out all our fruit production except citrus so not much to ferment in the freezer now. 5 gallons of muscadines & 1 case of honey is all we have for now. Pictured is the last bottling and final bottling of a Mayhaw-Fuji Apple blend. It is very tasty already which makes it harder to stay out of it.

Quick post of the Spiced Mead showing the progress of the yeasts.



When a fermentation starts slowing down the Wines & Meads start to darken at the top of the Secondary Fermenter. If you look closely you can see a lighter layer on the bottom of the Secondary. That is the dead yeast cake that is usually boiling within the entire Mead lightening up the color of the liquid. As long as C02 is being vigorously produced the Mead as well as Wine, mixes within the Secondary but when almost all the sugars or Honey are consumed the liquid begins to clear at the top. It's cool to monitor as there will be a line that moves down as the fermentation comes to completion. All my research says to age the Mead on the Lees (dead yeast cake on the bottom) for a smoother product. I have step fed this fermentation Honey in incremental amounts pushing the total ABV to 22%+. With that high of Proof, 44 proof at this point it will take 2-3 years before smoothing out. Aging Mead is better done at around 70-75 degrees which is the average room temperature of my storage racks.