Your Winemaking Educational Source
Yeast can have a profound affect on the final flavor and aroma profiles of a wine or so we’re told. But how much of a difference is there really from one yeast to another? To answer this question I set up the Great Riesling Yeast Experiment.
In this experiment I set out to ferment one Riesling kit in two, three gallon batches with two different yeast strains. Continue reading “The Great Riesling Yeast Experiment (Part I)”
One day your wine is happily fermenting along, you’re ready to rack, and while you’ve got the airlock off you notice something is up with your wine. Maybe it’s an off flavor or aroma. Maybe you notice the airlock wasn’t seated properly.
These things happen all the time. Knowing what to do, however, can prevent you from making bigger mistakes. This recently happened to me. Continue reading “What to Do if Something Goes Wrong”
Complexity in wine separates the great wine from the rest. Creating a complex wine, however, requires the use of advanced wine making techniques.
Here are three techniques you can start applying to your own wine making to take it to the next level. It doesn’t matter if you’re making wine from a kit, frozen must, or fresh fruit. Continue reading “Advanced Wine Making Techniques”
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.
With that in mind I picked up this wine making equipment kit from Midwest Supplies. This kit included the following:
Continue reading “How Much Does it Cost to Make Wine from a Kit?”
You’re really supposed to wait six months after bottling a red wine before you taste it…but I couldn’t resist!
When I bottled my Shiraz I wound up with 29 full bottles and about a half bottle left over. Needless to say I couldn’t store the half bottle for any length of time without oxidizing it. So, the only thing left to do was drink it!
I wanted to taste the wine as bottled for two reasons. First, I wanted to know what it tastes like in the beginning so that I have something to compare it to as it ages. Second, I wanted to see if I made any mistakes that I could learn from. Here’s what I found when I tasted my wine. Continue reading “First Impressions of My Shiraz and the Mistakes I Made”