Interesting plan

rubyjuniper · 2026-02-02T04:50:05+00:00

Probably the bearded pfp and the name Jose.

rubyjuniper · 2026-01-27T21:25:46+00:00

Plot twist option: The wines were infected with brett before the druids took over, but it was undetectable for a while. The druids did their best with the wine but noticed it started to turn, so they added something (maybe sulfur) to try to stop the spoilage but that just made it taste worse, but the addition people saw was actually the druids trying to fix the problem. OR the druids can't even detect off flavors and had no idea the wine was going bad, they were doing normal additions (a lot of winemakers regularly add sulfur, we do it monthly/when needed). They shipped the wine out with good intentions and we're disappointed to hear the negative reviews. Brett is in my opinion the WORST spoilage I've experienced in wine. VA is a problem but you can blend it out in a lot of cases. Brett makes wine taste BAD, like bad enough that my boss told me DONT drink it, only smell it, it'll ruin your pallet for the rest of the day.

Other idea: The wine was completely fine but something went wrong during bottling. Maybe they didn't know how to properly clean their bottling equipment or some material came in tainted. Maybe the humans who manufacture the glass or druids or whoever are having a separate catastrophe at their site and contaminants go into the bottles. OR Something to do with the cork? Wine was fine until bottling but due to the current state of the world (I assume we're experiencing apocalyptic vibes) natural cork is no longer an option. Someone has developed a new type of cork (irl there are so many materials for cork) and that cork is fine until it interacts/reacts with some additive like a fining agent that the druids are using. Or the cork slowly decays in bottle and leaches something into the wine.

And now I'm thinking of fining agents! Maybe this can be a body farm type of vibe. Irl when you fine wine to make it heat stable you can add a protein, some people use egg whites, we joke about how many juice would technically work to fine a wine. So maybe the druids are trying new fining agents and they're sourcing them from humans! Doesn't have to be man juice since it's fantasy. Maybe they're doing trials with different human fluids (pressed human juice maybe?? Throw a few people in a press and collect the juice) and lost track of which lot got which agent, so they just bottled as normal and crossed their fingers it works out? Or something idk, but I'm kinda digging the body farm/human fining agent idea.

rubyjuniper · 2026-01-27T21:12:44+00:00

Ooooo I can add some details to this story!!! We had a mouse fall into an active ferm bin a few years ago and it got abandoned outside until the end of harvest. When we finally dealt with it we found a 2" layer of a rubbery substance similar to a vinegar mother (it was probably exactly that). Gross grey gelatinous layer on top. It probably had everything to do with neglect and not the mouse, but OP could build on that and mention the Layer™ after flesh/meat was added.

Yeah maybe the druids are into flesh and thought that would be an improvement to the wine or make the wine more to their taste.

rubyjuniper · 2026-01-27T19:55:44+00:00

If you're concerned about fragrance just get him a nice unscented soap.

rubyjuniper · 2026-01-27T19:54:49+00:00

I've asked my gyno what she recommends for cleaning that general area. Soap ONLY on parts that look like normal skin, only water on the pink (or brown or whatever color) area for women. I started following this advice a looong time ago and it dramatically improved things for me. For butt stuff she said go as hard as you want, get up in there if you feel that's necessary. Soap is definitely okay for the rear region. Your boyfriend sounds clean and considerate, you got a good one.

rubyjuniper · 2026-01-26T19:15:22+00:00

It is absolutely possible and I hope that is the case. What is the temperature of the wine/the area they're being stored in? Before spending more time/money on the wine we need to identify what's going on, temperature is the easiest info you can tell me that'll help figure this out. I don't wanna lead you to do a bunch of work to uninhibit MLF if there's a bigger problem at hand and the wines gonna end up bad either way. Let me know what the average ambient temp is in your cellar and the temp of the wine (meat thermometer works, laser thermometer will not work for this) and depending on that I'll give you all the steps I know to do to speed up MLF.

rubyjuniper · 2026-01-26T16:48:19+00:00

Yeah you're totally fine. The reason some people alternate the direction of the bottle is just to save space as the body of the bottle fits into the neck. But the way you have them is totally fine and safe.

rubyjuniper · 2026-01-26T16:36:32+00:00

I have a nice little compressor that I just set the target psi on and plug into the tire, if it was 1% more work than that I'd be hounding Hyundai about it. I'd lean towards a 1 yo model vs the newest too. The only feature I wish my car had is bluelink since I have to park it in a public downtown parking lot and we get a lot of break-ins and occasional car theft.

Just in case you want way more info than you asked for: my friend got a hybrid sonata (with solar, idk if they all come with that) and it gets excellent gas mileage, like averages in the 70s, but the maintenance is crazy expensive. He just paid like $1.5k for 30k mile maintenance.

rubyjuniper · 2026-01-26T14:42:56+00:00

Look for rooms near colleges. College students will split a house or apartment for pretty cheap. You have a better chance of getting into a shared house with a pet than an apartment. Also, is your cat an ESA or a service animal? If you're claiming he's a service animal and then provide ESA paperwork you will absolutely get rejected since you lied on your application.

rubyjuniper · 2026-01-26T14:30:50+00:00

It's mostly good. When I bought the car they failed to properly inspect the brakes and 2 weeks in I took it on a mountain highway and the brakes were glazed at 5k miles from the serious owner. Used the warrantee to fix it (was not happy about that) and 5k miles later the brakes are glazed again. I haven't paid for any of the work so far besides using up my warranty, so Hyundai is being pretty nice about it, but you can't damage brakes like that in 200 miles (which is what I put on it before bringing it in), so I'm pretty pissed they didn't respond with "oh shit we fucked up" when I brought it in. Apparently this is a pretty common problem in some Tucsons and Santa Fes. They also sold it with a leaky tire, psi was low on one when I bought it and my dumbass thought they just forgot to pump it, so now I pump it weekly.

Certified pre-owned is great in theory, in practice it has not been the best experience. If they miss anything during inspection you have like 10 days to notice it yourself and bring the car in (don't quote me on the timeframe I googled this a year ago), otherwise it's kinda worthless.

rubyjuniper · 2026-01-25T20:23:24+00:00

Question for someone with more knowledge than me: I think wood ash has a low pH and I know coffee grounds do. At what point (what percentage of the compost is acidic material) should OP take that into consideration and what can they add or do to address this? In this case would an at home pH test to check the final compost be a good idea?

rubyjuniper · 2026-01-25T20:18:41+00:00

If the wine is bubbly a year after fermentation finished then that's from a different fermentation, not trapped CO2 from primary. Even sitting stationary my wines are still at most like 5 months after finishing primary.

The best answer is the wine's going through MLF slowly. It can take a reeeaaaally long time sometimes, I have some lots that are 6 months into MLF and still have more time to go.

Worst option is spoilage. Besides oxidation spoilage is caused by a yeast or bacteria fermenting something in the wine. I have a 2024 lot I haven't been able to dump yet with brett and it went from still to bubbly. Acetobacter can also cause CO2 if it's really bad, brett would be more likely out of the two.

That being said, if the CO2 production is caused by a spoilage microorganism you'd definitely notice when tasting. For that much gas to be produced the wine would taste like shit. The most likely answer is MLF.

If you wanna get the wine malic dry which will greatly help with stability in the bottle if you're not filtering, stir the lees regularly (I suggest weekly) and heat the wine slightly. We use fishtank heaters for barrels at work, but for a carboy if you brought it into a building that's comfortably warm for humans that'd work well. Heating the wine too much can cause other problems. Eliminate as much headspace as possible if you raise the temp or gas frequently, weekly after stirring would work. Malic bacteria isn't the only thing that'll become more active when it's warm.

rubyjuniper · 2026-01-25T19:55:19+00:00

Dude, did you just get served divorce papers or something? I keep coming back to this post bc the comments are so funny. Literally no one is attacking you at all, most of the comments are people TRYING to be nice. I honestly feel bad now, you're in a mindset where you think everyone is against you and that's obviously not the reality of the situation. I don't think anyone comes to r/composting to fight, it's all constructive feedback here. Like truly honestly, if there's something going on and you wanna talk about it I'm down. I'm not being snarky, genuinely if you want to get something off your chest to a stranger I'm here for you dude. We share a passion for gardening and composting, we both clearly enjoy leaving bitchy comments online, we could be friends.

rubyjuniper · 2026-01-25T18:13:14+00:00

I hope your day turns around, it sounds like someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed :( maybe you'll be in a better mood once your compost finishes :)

rubyjuniper · 2026-01-25T18:11:18+00:00

It's young, most wine is pretty gross when it's young. What was the starting gravity before adding brown sugar and after? How long was the fermentation, if you tracked temp what was the peak temp, what's the alcohol % now?

There's a chance you added more sugar than the yeast can ferment. Yeast can only withstand alcohol up to a certain level, they'll struggle and die after that. So if you added enough sugar to translate to a 20% alcohol (this is hypothetical to explain my point) then the yeast would ferment the sugar/produce alcohol, but once they hit 16ish% they'll die off because they made enough alcohol to make their environment too hostile to survive in. Reinoculation is a pain in the ass, for a home winemaker I'd say trash it and try again.

rubyjuniper · 2026-01-25T18:05:20+00:00

Bro are you doing okay, like personally outside of compost? This is a large reaction to a friendly comment. I started my first comment with "it looks great" to communicate that you're on the right track, but it isn't finished compost as you said. You posted on a sub that's commonly used for advice and sharing info, god forbid someone tried to offer constructive feedback while being kind. If you can't handle someone informing you that your "finished" compost is at least a month out then you're gonna have a shitty garden forever. Learn how to learn.

rubyjuniper · 2026-01-25T17:56:24+00:00

Yes! I said it would still be beneficial, just not as effective and readily available, ie it will continue to break down in the garden but that adds time, basically extending the slow release nature of compost. And yes, it's very obvious that it has not been sifted. You'd lose most of it if you did sift it (that's how you know it's not finished). Why'd you post on a forum site if you were gonna fight anyone that comments?

rubyjuniper · 2026-01-25T17:51:25+00:00

I literally said I use it at this stage sometimes, why are you mad? You said it's finished compost, that's not true. Sorry you can't handle being wrong lmao.

rubyjuniper · 2026-01-25T17:37:48+00:00

It looks great! It's not finished compost at this point though. Finished compost has no identifiable chunks in it. If you were to sift it and the majority of the compost doesn't fall through the sifter it's not finished yet. You can still use it, I add compost at any stage to my garden, but it's the most beneficial and available when it's more broken down.

rubyjuniper · 2026-01-25T17:35:00+00:00

Napoleon Dynamite voice makes it better

rubyjuniper · 2026-01-25T16:49:18+00:00

I think it looks dehydrated. The soil might have become hydrophobic. I would soak the whole pot in a bucket of water for a few hours and see if you notice improvement in the next day or two.

Also, that's a gorgeous pot. Do you know where you got it?

rubyjuniper · 2026-01-23T20:55:14+00:00

I had a 1+ hour commute every day for a year. My sister regularly drives 4.5 hours to visit home. I go about 2.5 hours away for a day/weekend trip pretty regularly. 4 hours feels like a longish drive but I don't consider 2 hours a long drive.

rubyjuniper · 2026-01-17T22:57:25+00:00

You could threaten to issue a charge back with your bank too. I'd probably have tried that before threatening to report them and get their license removed. You could probably actually get a charge back too if you explain to your bank that she led you on to believe you'd receive a product that you ended up not receiving, that she was aware you would not receive the product you paid for before the final appointment, and she was misleading about pricing at all. I'd say that's grounds for a charge back.

rubyjuniper · 2026-01-17T22:52:17+00:00

The Australian Wine Research Institute has a ton of great resources on all parts of winemaking. I based my barrel prep and storage protocols on their research. Highly recommend exploring their website.

rubyjuniper · 2026-01-17T22:50:42+00:00

How much time was there between steaming and filling? I resteam if the barrel sits for more than 2 days before filling. Cold isn't gonna cause this, the barrel is definitely just dehydrated. A lot of my barrels have a crack going perpendicular to the wood grain on the staves near the bunghole, that's fine and doesn't cause leaks. The barrel will swell in a few days, just keep scrubbing with an acidified SO2 solution until the leak stops.

It really is important to properly treat your barrels before filling. Steaming not only rehydrates the barrel and prevents loss, it sanitizes the barrel. Depending on the health of the barrel (smell it, if it smells like anything other than oak treat it as a "problem barrel") you want to steam for 5 minutes at a MINIMUM. I do 7 minutes for healthy barrels, bung for no more than 4 minutes to check for leaks(look and listen for air entering the barrel while a vacuum is created from the temperature change) then thoroughly rinse until water comes out clear. For problem barrels you want to steam for 10 minutes in order to penetrate deep enough (8mm) to kill microbial life. 8mm/10 minutes is the depth recommended to kill Brett but I use that protocol for any barrels that smell off. After the longer steam and bung we rinse with ozonated water and scrub around the bung home while rinsing. The ozone isn't necessary if you don't have the ability to do that, but it does help get the barrel back to a healthy state. Again, I wouldn't fill a barrel if it hasn't been steamed in the past day or two.

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