Category: Wine Making Process

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3 x 3 in 3 Kit Wine Making by William Forsch

Winemaker’s Academy is built on members helping each other make a better bottle of wine.  One of our members provided a very helpful presentation for the beginning kit wine maker.  As the title states you only need a 3′ x 3′ space and 3 hours of time to start your wine making experience.

Bill has been a kit wine maker for 9 years and has completed over 150 kits including all styles – red, white, and dessert.  He has also conducted full kit wine making classes for four years including almost 100 students.  After retirement five years ago, he began making wine from grapes.  Bill is an avid golfer, tennis player, chef/cook, and supporter of the Orange County Wine Society – Winemaker’s group and a member of their “leadership team”.  Bill’s Home Wine label is:  Lolita’s Claw Wines, named after the nasty calico cat that resides with him that tends to claw everything and everyone!

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When and How Often Should I Degas My Wine?

This is a seemingly straight forward question I get asked quite often. The answer, however, depends a lot on your wine making methods and what tools you use to degas.

I recommend degassing a wine only once. It’s a lot of work, especially if you use the agitation method (with a drill attachment), and there’s really no reason to degas in the middle of fermentation as you’ll only wind up with more suspended carbon dioxide anyway. Degassing through agitation can introduce oxygen into your wine so it’s best to keep that to a minimum.

Continue reading “When and How Often Should I Degas My Wine?”

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Fermenting Wine in Open Containers

There’s a lot of discussion around open fermentations. Beginners especially wonder why some recipes call for open fermentations and kit instructions call for an airlock to be placed on the fermenter as soon as you’ve pitched the yeast.

The truth is, you can do it either way.

When you’re first getting into winemaking I do not recommend fermenting your wine in an open container. There’s a bit more risk involved if you don’t have a good feel for when to put the lid on your wine. Continue reading “Fermenting Wine in Open Containers”

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Making Wine from Kits, Juice Pails, and Grapes

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Winemaker’s Academy member Craig joins us on this episode of the podcast to share his experience making wine from wine kits and then moving on to juice pails and grapes. He shares a lot of great insights and lessons learned.

As you can imagine it is a bit different working with juice pails and fresh grapes as much more of the chemistry is left up to you, the winemaker. Craig explains what these differences are, what we need to be thinking about as well as testing for.

Have a notebook ready! Continue reading “Making Wine from Kits, Juice Pails, and Grapes”

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Racking Wine For Clarity

Clearing a wine in preparation for bottling can be tricky. There are many different clarifiers on the market and each have their own strengths and weaknesses. An alternative to using clarifiers is to rack your wine strategically over time to help clear the wine. But how are you supposed to know when to rack your wine?

racking-for-clarityRecently I discovered a recommended racking schedule while reading From Vines to Wines by Jeff Cox and expanded upon it to give you a complete schedule from start to finish. This schedule assumes that you are not using a fining agent to clarify your wine. Continue reading “Racking Wine For Clarity”