Demijohns

[Grabo]

A while back I was on Craigslist looking for winemaking equipment, and I came across a guy who was selling his dad's old equipment set. Great for me because I just started getting into the hobby. It included all his leftover ingredients and equipment he used to make his wine from juice buckets. My primary interest was in the 2x 6gal glass carboys and the over 20x 1gal glass jugs, the rest was just icing on the cake.

However, now I have two demijohns sitting in my attic, and I'm not sure what to do with them. I assume they are 54L because they look like the typical pictures I see of demijohns in the dark gray plastic baskets, but I haven't measured them yet. At first I was thinking I would just resell them, but now all my 6gal carboys are full, including the ones I bought from this guy.

Since I've only been at this a few months, I been limited to done Dragon's Blood and Winexpert kits. What is the typical use for a 54L demijohn in today's winemaking? The seller remembered that his dad used to do juice buckets, is that what they are best suited for?

 

[TonyR]

They are used to store and age your wine. After the wine has been racked a few times and its 5 or 6 months old you can rack it into the demijohns and store it for years. Use a solid rubber bung and add
k-meta everytime you rack. It frees up your carboys

 

[Grabo]

For whatever reason, I never considered it with a solid bung for storage. Since I received 2, I assumed the previous owner racked from demijohn to demijohn, which in my mind, sounds very cumbersome. So the primary advantage would be the storage space of a demijohn versus the storage space of 72 or so bottles?

 

[Boyd]

I have one that holds about 12 gallons. Use it all the time and rack and degas with a vacuum pump. Have not had any problems with it.

Kids gave it to me for X-mas 6 or 7 years ago.

 

[JohnT]

54 liter demijohns hold roughly 14 gallons of wine.

First, my advise is to keep them!

I do not do kits. I do all of my wines from fresh grapes. As I made more and more, and the number of carboys grew and grew, I simply ran out of counter space and floor space.

The move to demijohns solved a lot of problems.

- A Demi will hold over 2.5 carboys, thus freeing up space and helping to keep things organized..
- A demi costs less that 2.5 carboys
- when racking, cleaning 1 demijohn is WAY easier than the effort to clean 2.5 carboys.
- 54 liters will bottle out to an even 6 cases. I like this as I can just get 6 cases of bottles and have none left over.

So, in short, I am a fan of Demijohns. If you have them, and there is a real possibility that you will make larger batches of wine, you should hang onto them. They seem to be getting more and more expensive each year. When I bought mine, they were only $25, but today are much, much more.

 

[Grabo]

Those are some good points! You've convinced me that I should keep them, at least for now, and see where I take this hobby. I'm not really hurting for space in my attic right now. Plus I'm already up to 6 carboys, so having a couple demijohns around might be smart based on my rate of progression. They just seem a little intimidating to me, for some reason. Possibly because they represent my next horizon within this hobby (juice buckets).