Another new wine maker and "experienced" wine taster!

[Tstryke]

Hello everyone!

My fiancée and I are huge fans of wine, mostly the sweeter stuff. We are actually getting married in Virginia wine country next year. Super excited for that! We have had the opportunity to travel all over the country and taste wines at their source and, personally, I have had the opportunity to travel all over the world (about 28 different countries) and try their wines as well! It has been a great experience. We always joked about running our own vineyard (with a side business/are for doggie day care for her), so I figured I would try my hand at wine making. Obviously, that's a far leap but I am also a big fan of time invested hobbies so this seemed right up my alley!

In any case, I just bought my first home kit so once that arrives I will begin my journey of making our own wines and probably failing spectacularly in the process, haha!

I look forward to all the advice I will receive on the many questions I am bound to have!

Cheers!

 

[cmason1957]

Welcome to WMT. First wine kit, best advice I got was to try to follow the directions as nearly exactly as I could, you should be able to make drinkable wine, at a minimum. Ask questions away. Someone on here will have done/tried/failed/succeeded at whatever you try to do, I would guess.

 

[sour_grapes]

Welcome to WMT!

 

[G259]

Don't be humbled by this, read online about wine-making, it's not that hard. #1 rule, you MUST keep everything sanitized (not sterilized - which is an absolute).

I use a potassium metabisulfite solution, that I make myself, I spray it on, and rinse with clean water after. If you have a wine making store near you, you can get the powder there, or I use Northern Brewer, or Midwest Supplies.

Read the directions, and ask any questions that crop up.

 

[Khristyjeff]

Welcome to WMT and congratulations on your upcoming marriage!

 

[Rice_Guy]

welcome to the forum,
lots of answers here and questions always welcome
you will find wine is a forgiving technology that could be done with 2000 year old techniques

 

[winemaker81]

@Tstryke, welcome to WMT and congrats on the upcoming marriage!

2 more pieces of advice:

1) if you don't have one, buy a hydrometer. It is the one essential item you want for winemaking. In the Tutorials, Calculators, Wine Logs & Yeast Charts forum, 3rd item down is How To Read Hydrometer.

2) Read the first couple pages of the Beginners Wine Making Forum. You will find answers to most of your questions there, and the answers to questions you don't yet know to ask.

As you read the posts, you'll see this is a friendly atmosphere where we help each other. The only stupid question is the one you don't ask.

 

[hounddawg]

Welcome to WMT,,,
yawl had my attention at sweet,,,,,,
patience followed by more patience,,,
Dawg

 

[Tstryke]

I received my first kit last night. I will probably start it sometime this week. The kit was for a Merlot which my fiancée doesn't drink but I do so, more for me!

 

[G259]

I bought a 'low-end' kit, and they shorted the juice on me by almost 50%. You get what you pay for, I bought a 'Finer Wine' kit, and expect good things!

 

[hounddawg]

I bought a 'low-end' kit, and they shorted the juice on me by almost 50%. You get what you pay for, I bought a 'Finer Wine' kit, and expect good things!

sad to hear you got cheated on your juice,,,
Dawg

 

[G259]

Lesson learned, I found out here, more reputable companies to deal with, so I won't fall into that trap again!

 

[G259]

1) if you don't have one, buy a hydrometer.

I disagree (lol!) Buy TWO. When you break one, you'll have a backup, trust me!

 

[Tstryke]

Been a while since I've posted since my initial posts. Been busing flying all over the world for work but now that the holidays are upon us, its calming down. So, an update on what I've done so far:

• 1 Gallon of Merlot - I ended up back sweetening this to my fiancées taste. Basically ended up like diabetes in a bottle. Was really good and she enjoyed it as well as everyone else that tried it.
• 1 Gallon of Mango - I ended up not degassing this enough and when checking on it after bottling, turned one of the bottles over and back again and the cork almost shot me in the face. In any case, I got the mangos cheap so I didn't bother wasting time trying to degas it all afterwards, I just dumped it as a lesson learned. It did taste pretty good though! Hand squeezed which was fun, but messy.
• 1 Gallon of White Grapes - No idea what type they were. They were on sale at Walmart so I grabbed them just to see how they would turn out. They actually came out pretty good! A little lighter in flavor but it was still drinkable and the group enjoyed it! Hand crushed with my sons. They had fun with it. Hell of a forearm workout.
• 1 Gallon of Pineapple - I just bottled this last week but we did have some of the leftover. This was really good! Looking forward to trying it again after it ages a bit.
• 1 Gallon of Blackberry - This will get bottled this weekend.

All in all it has been pretty successful. I definitely need to up the alcohol content in them. I assume this is done by adding sugar prior to fermenting. I've read in various places that the SG should be about 1.090 for a resultant 12-14% alcohol assuming it finishes below 1.000.

For fermenting in the current season, has anyone used a warmer they can recommend for a 1 gallon carboy? My house tends to stay pretty cold and I'd like to keep this process going through the winter. Any recommendations would be appreciated! I'm also going to get the All-In-One Pump after the holidays so we don't have the gassing issue again.

 

[mainshipfred]

Been a while since I've posted since my initial posts. Been busing flying all over the world for work but now that the holidays are upon us, its calming down. So, an update on what I've done so far:

• 1 Gallon of Merlot - I ended up back sweetening this to my fiancées taste. Basically ended up like diabetes in a bottle. Was really good and she enjoyed it as well as everyone else that tried it.
• 1 Gallon of Mango - I ended up not degassing this enough and when checking on it after bottling, turned one of the bottles over and back again and the cork almost shot me in the face. In any case, I got the mangos cheap so I didn't bother wasting time trying to degas it all afterwards, I just dumped it as a lesson learned. It did taste pretty good though! Hand squeezed which was fun, but messy.
• 1 Gallon of White Grapes - No idea what type they were. They were on sale at Walmart so I grabbed them just to see how they would turn out. They actually came out pretty good! A little lighter in flavor but it was still drinkable and the group enjoyed it! Hand crushed with my sons. They had fun with it. Hell of a forearm workout.
• 1 Gallon of Pineapple - I just bottled this last week but we did have some of the leftover. This was really good! Looking forward to trying it again after it ages a bit.
• 1 Gallon of Blackberry - This will get bottled this weekend.

All in all it has been pretty successful. I definitely need to up the alcohol content in them. I assume this is done by adding sugar prior to fermenting. I've read in various places that the SG should be about 1.090 for a resultant 12-14% alcohol assuming it finishes below 1.000.

For fermenting in the current season, has anyone used a warmer they can recommend for a 1 gallon carboy? My house tends to stay pretty cold and I'd like to keep this process going through the winter. Any recommendations would be appreciated! I'm also going to get the All-In-One Pump after the holidays so we don't have the gassing issue again.

How cold is cold, most yeasts will ferment in the mid 60s it just might take a little longer. Otherwise wrapping a blanket around them will help. If your careful to do it safely you can always put a light bulb in a box with the carboy.

 

[Tstryke]

How cold is cold, most yeasts will ferment in the mid 60s it just might take a little longer. Otherwise wrapping a blanket around them will help. If your careful to do it safely you can always put a light bulb in a box with the carboy.

Not that cold so I guess I will be ok. It doesn't really get any colder than 65 or so in the house. I can always turn the thermostat up to 68 during the fermentation although I'll be roasting at night.

 

[Rembee]

You can wrap it with a seed starter warming mat with the temperature control that is sold separately. You can dial in the temp that you want to ferment at. They come in different sizes. You can find them on Amazon.
I use a bungee cord to hold it in place.
Hope this helps

 

[Gilmango]

The brewbelt is a nice tool to keep things warmer than your house, they suggest using it around plastic fermentors instead of glass ones but it doesn't get so hot that the glass should be in any danger. About $23 on Amazon, on sale at Label Peelers for $15


https://labelpeelers.com/equipment/...MIw7D7qY_k9AIVrBXUAR178A4EEAQYBCABEgJ1xfD_BwE

 

[cmason1957]

With your house at 65F, I wouldn't bother with any external heating elements at all. I ferment everything in my basement and it seldom gets above 65F. Most yeasts work just fine down to about 60F, some even lower. You might (and I stress might) be adding a day to your ferments, but not much else. Since you are doing kits instead of from grapes, there is no need to get your red wine ferments hot and they will generate their own internal heat as they get going.

 

[Rembee]

I should have clarified better. I only use my warming pad when my garage is in the 50's during winter. I agree with @cmason1957. I leave my wine alone when Internal temps are in the 60's.