Posted on

How Much Does it Cost to Make Wine from a Kit?

Wine kits are by far the least expensive way to get into wine making. It requires the least amount of equipment and makes the smallest amount of wine. Let’s take a look at what determines the cost to make wine for the first time.

The Equipment I Purchased

To get started I picked up the Vintner’s Reserve Shiraz wine kit. This included the grape juice concentrate and nearly all of the additives required to make the wine. However, wine kits do not include any equipment.

Both equipment and the quality of the kit determine how much it costs to make wine.
Kit Winemaking Equipment

With that in mind I picked up this wine making equipment kit from Midwest Supplies. This kit included the following:

  • Primary Fermenter
  • Glass Carboy (6.5 gallon)
  • Hydrometer
  • Corker
  • Corks
  • Bottle Brush
  • Sanitizer
  • Airlock
  • Carboy plug

Continue reading “How Much Does it Cost to Make Wine from a Kit?”

Posted on

How to Remove Wine Labels

It's best to remove wine labels well ahead of time. This can be a time consuming process so you want to start early.

Reusing wine bottles is the perfect way to save some money when making your own wine. The problem is how do you remove the labels?

I’ve found there are mainly three types of labels, paper, plastic, and plastic coated paper. Paper labels are easy as they’ll come off after only a few minutes in water. Plastic labels peel off but leave a mess (more on that below).

The toughest labels to remove are the plastic coated paper labels. They don’t peel off and water can’t penetrate the plastic so you can’t soak it off.

After a bit of practice, however, I stumbled upon a method that works really well for paper and plastic coated paper labels. Check out this video to see how I do it. Continue reading “How to Remove Wine Labels”

Posted on

The Anatomy of a Grape

Knowing and understanding grapes is absolutely essential to making good wine. After all these little berries are what it all starts with right?

By their very nature grapes are the perfect winemaking fruit. No other fruit contains the perfect amounts of sugar, acidity, and phenolic compounds to create such an amazing beverage. Any other fruit requires additional sugar or other ingredients to even produce alcohol.

Let’s get to know our little friend a little bit better. Shall we? Continue reading “The Anatomy of a Grape”

Posted on

How to Use a Racking Cane

A racking cane is simply a hard plastic tube used to siphon wine from one container to another. Despite their simplicity they can be a bit tricky to use.

The most difficult part of using this device is getting the flow of wine going. While you could suck on the end of the tube like a straw to get the siphon started this is hardly a sanitary way to make wine.

I’ll show you the best way I’ve found to use the racking cane. It takes a little practice but once you get the hang of it it’s really easy.

Continue reading “How to Use a Racking Cane”

Posted on

The Differences Between Cleaning, Sanitizing, and Sterilizing

While this may seem like a trivial distinction to make different wine making resources will use these terms interchangeably and it can get confusing.

Cleaning

Simply put, cleaning wine making equipment is to remove dirt and debris. This can be done by using warm water and your hands or a sponge to remove the big stuff. You don’t want to use soaps or detergents as these can leave behind a residue of their own.

What cleaning does not do is remove any micro-organisms. Cleaning by itself is not enough to ensure that you won’t have any undesirable tastes due to rogue micro-organisms. Continue reading “The Differences Between Cleaning, Sanitizing, and Sterilizing”