Your Winemaking Educational Source
While it is great fun to have your very own wine label on the bottles you made it can also be a hassle when you go to reuse the bottle. Most wine labels leave a sticky mess behind that require chemicals to remove.
There is one company, however, that makes a reusable wine label that leaves no mess behind and has quite a few other neat features. I found these not too long ago and wanted to check them out. Continue reading “Awesome Reusable Wine Labels”
It’s inexpensive, easy to use, and easy to neglect. The cost of neglecting it, however, is all the wine your making. So what is this little savior of wine?
The airlock.
Continue reading “The Most Neglected Piece of Winemaking Equipment”
Reusing wine bottles is the perfect way to save some money when making your own wine. The problem is how do you remove the labels?
I’ve found there are mainly three types of labels, paper, plastic, and plastic coated paper. Paper labels are easy as they’ll come off after only a few minutes in water. Plastic labels peel off but leave a mess (more on that below).
The toughest labels to remove are the plastic coated paper labels. They don’t peel off and water can’t penetrate the plastic so you can’t soak it off.
After a bit of practice, however, I stumbled upon a method that works really well for paper and plastic coated paper labels. Check out this video to see how I do it. Continue reading “How to Remove Wine Labels”
A racking cane is simply a hard plastic tube used to siphon wine from one container to another. Despite their simplicity they can be a bit tricky to use.
The most difficult part of using this device is getting the flow of wine going. While you could suck on the end of the tube like a straw to get the siphon started this is hardly a sanitary way to make wine.
I’ll show you the best way I’ve found to use the racking cane. It takes a little practice but once you get the hang of it it’s really easy.
The hydrometer is the testing instrument you’ll use most when making wine. While it looks simple enough it does take some practice to fully understand both how to use it and what it’s telling you.
I’ll show you how to use a hydrometer as well as what the results mean in this three and a half-minute video. You’ll get to actually see the hydrometer used to measure the specific gravity of tap water, a sugar solution, as well as a finished wine so you’ll see the differences.
After the video I’ll share some additional tips on getting the best reading you can from this extremely useful instrument. Continue reading “Using a Hydrometer for Making Wine”