I ordered a cheap chinese optical refractometer from Amazon to use for convenience instead of a traditional hydrometer. It seemed accurate enough after calibration, I don't expect magic or lab results. Ballpark is fine by me.

I got suspicious when my cider and wine have kept stopping at 1.020-1.025 and nothing I whatever I tried would only make them bubble for another few days and reduce a couple of degrees Oe. So I did a reading with my hydrometer to verify. Yep, the SG for the cider ~1.000 and with the wine in negatives.

Checking out the refractometer it says it is for beer.

Is there a difference for wine and beer refractometers? Is is this refractometer, cheap chinese ones in general or is it me?

Cheers

Edit: twas me

Apropos "it's better to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond"

From "The Ferryman: Legends of Nanyang".

Yes, it's the 1990s.

I've seen enough of the internets to know this is a must have. Damn, if I was in America this would be a business idea in itself.

Edit: If you nick this idea and make it your business - YOU'RE WELCOME! I only ask kindly of you send a yearly donation to Doctors Without Borders or some similar organisation.

I was having a bad stressful dream like I often do. But then I realized I was just dreaming and that I don't want to dream this shite. So then I dreamed something else.

That was nice.

If somebody theoretically wanted to watch all seasons of the amazing show New Zealand Today when the official streaming is geo locked and has blacklisted VPNs in NZ - how would they theoretically do it?

Theoretical cheers

How much difference does different yeast strains really make? Is it perceptible like what kind of apples you used or is it delicate nuances when doing a blind tasting?

BUMPSIES: Update and discussion on bitters/aperitif in comments

This particular little wine was supposed to have the fruits in it for ten days. I forgot all about it over Christmas stress so the fruit has been soaking for over a month. I racked it today and boy does it have an aftertaste of the zest. Do you think it can be recovered? Will the zesty bitterness reduce from aging? Or can I do something else about it?

While manually degassing my current 23l bucket of wine, my mind drifted off into dream land of how to save my arms and back in future times. I came to think of those vibration plates for supposed exercise benefit.

Googling it seems people have considered them for making beer but in order to stimulate the yeast or something something carbonation magic - quite the opposite of my idea.

Whaddya think? Could it work for degassing buckets of wine?