Thanks for the reply Pp.

Yes , the water was ok and I made sure I mixed everything extremely
well. The instructions said it should be between 1.070 and 1.085 so
the 1.080 seemed ok at the time. But, later I noticed that this is
only 10.6% abv.

You cleared up something that I was confused about. I checked the TA
before fermentation started and got a real crazy result (even after I
did it serveral times and even after opening a fresh bottle of Sodium
hydroxide). Now I know why. Thanks for pointing this out to me.

Maybe I'll skip the acid adjustment and just add some tannin. Looks
like if I had added tannin and adjusted the s.g. prior to fermentation
(like the "extended" kit instructions suggest) I would have been okay.

Oh well, live and learn.

Thanks again for your assistance.

Roger L. Pelletier , Aurora, NE USA