Wine making

[Paddy]

My wife and I like to make wine. We have only made 3 batches, 90 bottles so far but what a hoot. We started last X-mas. We use the grape juice kits from wine regions from around the world. So far we have done Italy, Argentina and South Africa. They cost Between $70 and $100 for a kit to make 30 bottles, 6 gal. (You can make wine from about anything but they are mostly ferminted sugar water.) I drink beer myself, but the wife likes wine. She also likes to cook(that's good because I like to eat!) making wine is ...kinda like cooking if you like to experiment. On this third batch we added raisins, pruns, cranberries, vinilla bean and hickory bark. The kit contained oak chips but our last batch could have used a bit more bight, hence the hickory bark! The equipment investment is low if you make wine. The main tools are; 8 gal plastic bucket, 6 gal glass jug (car-boy), clear hose (to transfer from bucket to carboy) and various stuff like vapor locks. You can get buy with a cheep corker, but we went with a real beast. Neat device that compresses the cork and pushes it down in one fuild motion. You only need the corker for a few hours so if you can barrow one...well that works too

Having fun over the holidays,

Patrick

The whole notion of wine making becomes fun. Lable making to giving bottles you made......last year. I will have to post a photo of our label from, "Vicious Fishes Winery"

 

[gemini5362]

You remind me of my days living in saudi arabia. Since there was no alcohol allowed everyone made it and wine was the easiest to make. I dont drink but my wife likes wine and we would have it with meals when we had guests. We used to go out and buy bottles of RACHE ( I think that was the name) Grape Juice these bottles were like some of the old timey milk bottles it had a rubber stopper that was held on with a wire holder that snapped down in the closed position. We would get a 5 gallon water jug and drill a hole in the lid then put a 1/4 inch clear tube through the hole and silicone it in place. We would empty out the right amount of juice and then add bread yeast ( I know you are supposed to use wine yeast but they did not sell it in kingdom and if you were caught bringing it through customs was a long time in jail.) we would add the right amount of water and finally the right amount of sugar. screw the lid with the plastic tube in it on top of the jug. We took an empty grape juice bottle and filled it about half way to the top with water then put the other end of the plastic tube in the bottle of water with the end at the bottom of the bottle. After a while the yeast would start working and you would get a neat little bubbling sound out of the grape bottle with the tube in it. When the bubbleing stopped we would pour it back into the bottles through a strainer and not use the last 5 inches of mixture. I dont know how it tasted but I never had a person pour a glass out or refuse a second glass.

 

[kossetx]

Patrick, I plan on making some in the future. When I was a boy my grandfather made enough wine to fill 6 30 gal casks. He was born in Italy. The local grocery store rented a grape press right there next to the carpet cleaner.

I recently met some folks, 2 brothers, who manage the vinyard (1 brother) and is the wine master,(the other brother) of a decent size winery in Bryan TX. I met them through an ad for a PHD. I was telling them about how I can't get rid of the muscadines on my place and they told me if the muscadines will grow there then wine grapes will grow also, so here comes the orchard.

In a few years I'll proably be one poor wino.

Mark

 

[ronjhall]

We have been doing wine making since the early 90's. Making the kits and modifying them to our own taste is fun.
We buy our supplies from stores in Canada. Better kits are available there. Plus the prices are much better than around my area.
Here is the place we use. Winekitz .
We do 12 gallons at a time. This way we always have some aging. Sure makes a difference if wine can age a few months before drinking.
Our latest favorites is White Merlot Blush and Brise de Mers.
Always have some Piesporter in the rack.
We do not make red wines anymore. The wine has something in it that gives me terrible headaches.

 

[Hosskix]

I was telling them about how I can't get rid of the muscadines on my place and they told me if the muscadines will grow there then wine grapes will grow also, so here comes the orchard.

In a few years I'll proably be one poor wino.

Mark

Never heard of muscadine wine?
Save yourself a step on the road to wino-hood!

 

[Paddy]

ronjhall,

There has been lot's of studies as to why 'red' wine gives some folks head aches. Quite a mystery.

The kits I use are 4gal of concentrait that make 6 gal of wine. I have tried my first cheep kit, 2.6 gal makes 6 gal. I have been told the main diff between the cheep kits and the expensive kits is, just more consentraition. What do you use? and do you know the real diff in the kits?

When you say you do 12 gal at a time, do you mean you make two batches at a time? Or do you have a 12 gal car boy? That would be heavy! We started with two batches last X-mas, a week or so apart. We have one bucket and two glass 6 gal car boys

 

[ronjhall]

We use the Medium Bodied, Traditional Vintage wine kits. They have more concentrate (grape) and generally take 6 to 8 weeks before bottling. These kits run about $50 USD at the stores.
We have 2 primary buckets and 3, 6 gallon carboys.
We rack at least one time from one carboy to another. Always use distilled water. Also have a filter that we use before bottling. Always filter all wine into one carboy before bottling. That way all bottles have the same mix.

 

[RobertN]

I brew beer(at least used to; my equipment is gathering dust right now...). Other friends I used to brew with also made wine. They have made some very nice wines from concentrate, and also from fresh juice. One even won an award at the county fair a few uears back.

Around here, there are a couple wineries that will also sell fresh pressed juice at harvest time. They also have bottling days, where you bring your own bottles; they fill them from thier vat and cork them for a fee.

I have thought of making wine, but never took the plunge. With all my beer making stuff, I have everything I need to do wine also. Just never have... Partly because, here in the Gold Country, there are dozens of wonderful local wineries, with a couple dating back to the Gold Rush.

 

[JRobyn]

When we were kids (15ish), we found that one of the kids in school had learned how to make homemade wine using plain old Welch's grape juice and bread yeast. It wasn't too bad to our inexperienced palates, and was a source of unlicensed/unregulated/unparental knowledge alcohol! So using his recipe, we tried our own batches. My best buddy couldn't come up with any Welches without arousing parental suspicions, so he figured that orange juice might work. To keep his batch hidden from his parents, but where he could still monitor its fermentation, he decided to make it on the top shelf of the closet in his bedroom. Plastic milk jugs were the primary fermentation vessels. I don't know what, if any, yeast he used; probably just natural yeasts from the air. If you've ever really studied any of this, you'll know that these yeasts more often than not simply produce spoilage, or at best a very smelly and noxious brew! He also couldn't come up with anything for a fermentation lock except for to put a baloon over the neck of the jug. The final mistake he made was to leave very little air space at the top of the jug. Fast-forward about two weeks when the experiment was nearly forgotten. When the baloon finally ruptured, it must have been at least half full, and the rotted orange juice must have had a good bit of "sparkle" to propel it out of the jug and down over all of his clothes. We didn't ever really find out how all of the clothes got cleaned; the whole thing was sort of a sore subject! He often smelled a little odd for a few months afterwards.

Cheers!

Jay

 

[oscer]

Ahhh! This topic brings back some fond memories(and some not so fond ones too). I have an envelope full of old family wine recipies. The big tradition in our family was dandelion wine.When we were kids we would always spend a couple of hours in the spring picking dandilion blossoms for my dad and some of my uncles.We never minded this chore because we new the pay off would come latter in the summer. As I got older I started making batches of my own,some good,some went down the drain.
I've long since developed a taste for good Italian wine,so I don't try to make it any more,because I simply can't compete with the Italian vinyards.I think I'll go enjoy a glass of Merlot.
cheers