Last wine making supplies purchase of 2009

Just put in an order at Presque Isle for:

• 3/8th inch tubing - 10 feet of it and we can cut it to size as we want.  Some of the last tubing we bought got left in a bucket of water, and while it's still fine to use, the clear vinyl has turned cloudy.  Yuck;
• Solid rubber stoppers in sizes 6.5 and 7, 4 each.  It's finally occurred to me that the 2 year old Sangiovese and other old carboys really don't want a gas-lock on them any more - they want solid stoppers to hold off evaporation.  Got the two sizes because it seems that the 5 gallon carboys have changed in recent years.  Who knew?
• Titratable Acide tests from Accuvin.  This is a splurge, especially since the shelf life of the tests is only 6 months and I'm buying them now, after fermentation.  But it might be an interesting learning experience for us to match acid measurements against what we taste.  I'm betting Syrah the juice Mike & Pam have fermented will measure very low and, who knows, maybe can be touched up with just a bit of tartaric acid.  (Smart money might be against me.)
• Bentonite: the Muscat wants fining.  Whether now at 2nd racking or at a third racking, I dunno.  
• Narrow gauge hydrometer.  This will be fun for next year.  Measures from 5 to -5 brix.  Might even be interesting to look more closely at the Muscat to see how dry it really is.  I don't see it changing anything we do, just knowing a bit more.
• Corks, 1.75 inch amalgamated.  These are the cheapest natural corks PI sells, and just fine for a few years or more.  If the Grimaldi Savino gang wants to shoot higher, go for it.  I did in the 2nd year of our winemaking.  Only bought 100, at about 26 cents each.  

That's it.  Still need to make oak decisions pretty soon, and a bunch more corks later.

Feb. 2009 Amaro, 5th & final step

I filtered 200 ml. of the Feb 2009 amaro last evening.  10th months old.  Perfect amber color.  Really interesting, citrus hinting nose.  Taste - whoah!  That's no wussy drink.  That's the kind of amaro you feel smug abut ordering at a bar.  As the Who said, All the people, they stand back, when amaro walks by.   Or something like that.

Peter came over and tasted it with us.  I see Lori didn't finish hers.  (I had a second before beddy-bye last night.)

Xmas liqueurs, errors and omissions

We have an Anisette and a Ginger Cardamom batch going.  The Anisette is from Meilach and the G/C from Rathburn (or it's Rathburn's Ginger plus a couple of Cardamom pods suggested by Meilach).

I was putting the simple syrup together last night and I realized that Meilach and Rathbun use different proportions.  Meilach is 2 to 1 sugar to water, and Rathbun is 3 to 2.5.  I automatically made the Meilach syrup, and now have to decide whether to make the ginger a little sweeter than it's author would, or make another batch of syrup.  Plus I misremembered the final volumes - I forgot that the final volume = the sugar content, not the water, so I would up making double the amount I need.  Yo, I have a lot of syrup right now - anyone need any?

Time to start thinking about the 2nd racking

Kids, it's time to think about the second racking.  It's already been a month since the first racking.  How much longer to we want to go?  Xmas week?  A full two months to the 9th or 10th of January 2010?

And for the Syrah - do we need to do a second racking at all?

For the Muscat, when do we fine?  Before 2nd racking?  Before 3rd?

With the second racking, it's also time to be looking at oak for the reds: Barrel Mill spirals?  Stavin cubes?  I don't think any of our batched are big enough for a half-barrel, and would we go smaller?