Walter Venables > wrote:

> Here is my problem. Last weekend I was bottling 5 gal. of Raspberry
> and 5 gal. of a white blend. I like to sample as I am bottling to
> taste the fruits of my labor so to say. To my calculations, it
> should have yielded approximately 25 bottles per 5 gal. but I only
> ended up with 20 bottles of each. To my calculation that is an
> approximate loss of 1 gal. of Raspberry and 1 gal of white. This
> was a very frustrating situation and it didn't help having these
> little guys running around me all the time as I was bottling. So
> my question is how the heck do I stop these little wine thieves
> from stealing my wine?

This is a very simple problem to solve. You were filling 750ml
bottles. If you had used 1.75 liter bottles, your shrinkage
would have been less than 3 bottles.

> By the way they must have come back while I was sleeping and
> hit me in the head a few times because I woke up with such a
> headache the next day. Any help would be appreciated.

Always bottle on a full stomach and take aspirin, tylenol, etc.
before going to bed.

Dick