" and think the antiseptic approach is possibly based on research in the field of human medicine and the somewhat perilous logical leap of faith that it applies to plants in the same way, although their defense mechanisms have almost nothing in common with animals." Harvestman...I suspect you are spot on about this or at least mostly so. I too have always had a hunch this was the case. I am sure however that viruses and bacterial infections could be spread by dirty pruners. I say this because I've seen open wounds in trees I've had become infected. We know the viruses etc exist because we can see them under high power magnification. We also know for a fact that these "bad guys" can be killed with disinfectants because we can see that too. There is an apple breeding video on YT (12 part Lubera in Switzerland / Germany) in which they describe how fireblight resistance is quantified. The trees are simply inoculated with the viral strain and then they see what the results are. Videos and literature always prescribe pruning shear/tool disinfecting. Having said all that, when watching production professionals pruning/grafting I rarely see them disinfecting their tools. My take on the whole thing is this: I think disinfecting pruners almost certainly lessens the likelihood of cross infection whether bacterial, fungal or viral, but in high speed production pruning it's benefits are probably not great enough to warrant the significant amount of extra time required to carry it out. Professionals (like yourself) have recognized this through a lot of experience and so dispense with this time consuming step. I, like copingwithclay, also disinfect everything (hands, fingers, knife, shears, levering tools etc) and act as though I'm doing open heart surgery on a human in my every move. All the while in doing this though, I know I'm probably just wasting time. Thing is...it's time I have usually so I don't mind. Like you, I too would like to see data on this and I have to think somebody somewhere probably have done such tests, but I've never seen or read anything about it.

If you want low alcohol, you need to begin the ferment when the hydrometer reads 1.07. Most wines start at 1.09, and if you go over 1.15, your wine will be like rocket fuel.

sheryl - would it be possible to dry those tomatoes for wine making? I know how tough it is during the season when everything in the garden is ripening all at once. I'm always amazed when I talk with the folks on the Harvest Forum about ways to "preserve" their garden produce. Also - the maneuvering to freeze, can or dry stuff - depending on storage space. I'm always "organizing" my freezer, fridge and pantry to make room for the new arrivals. I'm on my 3rd batch of lime wine now - a great crop of them this winter. It gets a little easier each time, and with experience a lot better tasting. I think I can squeeze in one more round before they are gone. A lot of the juice has been frozen in ice cube trays. We use some for drinking limeade, and a lot is used in making jellies and fruit cannings. By the way - I never hear about limits - seems to me the gov't restricts individual alcohol making - but don't recall the details.

Sue  the short answer is IÂd stop and taste it first before adding anything else since I think IÂd need a few more of your brix readings to correlate with the readings of 9% and 5%. I'm pretty sure brix readings drop as you ferment (like specific gravity) and you want your final brix reading around 0 for a wine in the semi-dry range. The much longer answer is that the alcohol content will only increase as long as a fermentation is taking place ... it stops when the yeast converts all available sugar, the yeast dies off once they reach their alcohol tolerance or the conditions (such as very high or low temperatures, etc.) stop them. If itÂs clearing and showing 5 brix, thatÂs a bit on the sweet side if I remember brix  IÂd first probably get a wine thief and taste it before doing anything else to get an idea of where itÂs at since normal fermentations start with high brix numbers and ferment down to around 0 or less. YouÂve actually done a couple of different things that impact the final alcohol content of your wine  youÂve increased the total fermented volume by adding water and increased the amount of available fermentation material by adding sugar and youÂre going to have to account for both additions if you want to know exactly what the end result is. Did you happen to take a reading of the original must before you added the yeast and do you remember how many pounds of sugar you put in that gallon of water? If so, you can get a pretty good idea of the current percent alcohol through this (hopefully not too confusing) example: Once you start feeding a must you have to start tracking each incremental change in brix (or specific gravity) in order to get the overall alcohol content of the wine and you need measurements at the start and end of each stage. For example, let's say that your starting brix is 15 (sg 1.061) and at your first racking it is at brix 0 (sg 1.000). Brix start-end = 15-0= 15. Then you add sugar that brings the brix back up to 7 (sg 1.028) and it ferments down to 1 (sg 1.004) by the time you're ready to rack again. Brix start-end = 7-1 = 6. You add even more sugar to the mix and to bring the brix back up to 9 (sg 1.036) and it drops until brix 0 where it finally stops and fully clears. Brix start-end = 9-0= 9. At the end of all this you end up going through a drop of 15+6+9 = 30 brix points and the final alcohol of the wine comes out around 16% alcohol (I think the brix to alcohol factor is around .535). This whole thing does not take into account the amount of water that you had added but if you know the pounds of sugar itÂs pretty to take the pounds per gallon of sugar and convert that into potential alcohol and then just use additive volumes to get to the final result. Sorry for the long reply  I think my fingers got ahead of me!