Kit or Chilled juice pail?

[Spencerthebuilder]

Spring produce is here! Planned on picking up a few pails tomorrow to make aging reds inventory and summer whites for the family. Now I see several kits on sale at Morewine. The prices are now roughly the same. The Chilean and Austrailian juice I'm planning on is kept chilled, but unbalanced or doctored. as far as I know. Kits are balanced and prepped, and should be able to be kept on the shelf for a while. But of coarse they are concentrates vs. pure juice.. What do do? Opinions?

 

[BMarNJ]

Well, you can put a red juice pail through MLF..
Personally, I like to add grapes to a pail. A hybrid approach that doesn't require a crusher or wine press, but adds some character and makes it more fun for me.

 

[heatherd]

I like to do juice pails for the whites as they don't need anything else from a kit and tend to be cheaper. For reds, I want either a pail + lug of grapes/grape pack like the one from Mosti Mondiali/kit with skins/frozen must.

 

[Spencerthebuilder]

Yes, I've already planned on co-innoculation with Viniflora and adding a 2nd run for the Fresh kit skins pack to the Carmeniere and Cab. Thinking of adding 2 table spoons of coffee and some currants the Malbec primary. Added a lug last year with good results, although labor intensive without equipment. No crusher or press. My supplier doesn't have lugs this year. Pinot stands on it's own as my daughter is just going to put on
the rocks anyway... but what about the kits?

 

[Bts]

For everyday drinkers at the same price I'd go with kits. They're just so much easier and more foolproof. Balanced vs unbalance is a big deal, and getting the PH right is tricky with cheap PH meters and buckets not wanting to budge on PH regardless of how much tartaric you add and how vigorously you try to incorporate it. Over the last few years I've dumped 1 bucket and had a few more come out pretty mediocre, certainly worse than any cheap kit(though to be fair one the best wines I've ever tasted was a bucket of vermentino I did that started at an undrinkable 4.2 and took an entire 3oz bottle of tartaric). I'm still gonna deal with that for a large-for-me all grape batch with the goal of making a big heavy red this fall, but for a bucket of lighter table wine that's the same price and same quality as a kit, meh. Balanced buckets are more apples to apples, and unbalanced Chilean and Italian seem to have better numbers IME than Californian(and I'd assume Australian) which are often 4.x due to the hot weather. That said, I've been pleased with Barbera which seems to maintain decent acidity even in the hottest regions of cali. It also depends on what you want. For big heavy reds you need a premium kit or all grape; buckets/cheap kits just won't really do it. For light/tart reds and whites, the lower end kits are consistently decent, while buckets could be anywhere from great to junk depending on a mix of luck and skill, with white buckets probably having better odds of producing a real winner.

 

[winemaker81]

This is a tough question to answer. In general, I'd say if you're making red, you want skin.

I made a Winexpert Australian Cabernet Sauvignon last September for my son's wedding reception in October. We bottled at 7 months and the wine is fantastic! Seriously -- there's going to be 2 or 3 people at the reception who will appreciate the wine, and I won't be one of them. But my son asked me to make wine for his reception, and hell-or-high-water, it was going to happen.

This said, kits from reputable vendors may not need skins.

 

[heatherd]

Yes, I've already planned on co-innoculation with Viniflora and adding a 2nd run for the Fresh kit skins pack to the Carmeniere and Cab. Thinking of adding 2 table spoons of coffee and some currants the Malbec primary. Added a lug last year with good results, although labor intensive without equipment. No crusher or press. My supplier doesn't have lugs this year. Pinot stands on it's own as my daughter is just going to put on
the rocks anyway... but what about the kits?

@Spencerthebuilder I'm in the same boat for crusher and press, ended up getting frozen must that's already crushed and pressing by hand. I like that process because it means I get more free-run juice, which is the better stuff.

If you can't get a lug, buy this Mosti Mondiali grape pack, which is shelf stable and contains a lot of grapes. You can either use the whole thing or split between two batches:
Natural Grapes for Winemaking (juicegrape.com)

You can get frozen grapes, frozen juice, or shelf-stable fresh juice shipped to you from Brehm, Juicegrape.com, PIwine.com, or Walker's Wine Juice, Winegrapesdirect. ($135-230 + shipping) - pH-balanced, Brix tested, and TA tested.
Brehm Vineyards - Fine Wine From Fine Grapes ($180ish + shipping) - pH-balanced, Brix tested, Yan tested, and TA tested.
Chile Fresco (juicegrape.com) ($75 + shipping)
- Walker's Wine Juice, LLC ($40-90 + shipping)
Order Your Fresh Australian Juice Pails for Wine Making | Page 1 of 1 (piwine.com)
Musto Juicegrape frozen must Frozen Must and Juice (juicegrape.com) ($140-170 + shipping) - pH-balanced, Brix tested, and TA tested.

For kits, I would do the new Finer Wine ones only available from Label Peelers, you can order now and get them in 2-4 weeks. They show up as out of stock but can still be ordered. I recommend the double-skins pack.
Finer Wine Kits | Label Peelers, Inc. ($85 + shipping)
Videos showing you how to make it: Cabernet Sauvignon Finer Wine Kit | Label Peelers, Inc.
Instructions are here: Finer Wine Kit Instructions (adobe.com)

If you want a good kit for the summer I'd recommend these, which tend to be good over ice and quicker to make:
Island Mist Fruit Wines | Label Peelers inc ($65 + shipping)
They are lower alcohol so there is a boosting guide on the same page.

 

[Spencerthebuilder]

Thanks Heather! Lots of homework on your part in that reply. Kits won out. I dallied on the Australian Cab and they sold out. too bad as everyone seemed to rave about it. So I pulled the trigger on a Grand Cru Nebbiolo and a Sangiovese. $65 for oak, 12 L of juice, skin packs, and solid reviews. Maybe I'll substitute in a BM 45. The Neb is Sonoma and the San is Italy. Paid $105 for the same kit 18 months ago and was very happy. Now I'll be even happier.... Add a kit of Pinot Gris ($54), and a Grand Cru Muscat ($65). shipping included. Make them separately, then cocktail half the batches should give a nice summer white that can stand up to an ice cube. Maybe still boost the brix a bit.
Thanks for the heads up, but the FinerWine Super Tuscan I ordered 5 weeks ago is scheduled to arrive this Saturday. I have high expectations for it. As it's chilled, it gets made first and put away. Then the double grape pack goes into 2 pails of Carmenere I pick up tomorrow. Lots of musical buckets and carboys. Building inventory to be tapped in a year.

 

[Spencerthebuilder]

Fresco was $95 if I pick it up in Hartford CT. $115 locally. CMason spoke well of it but I passed on it for the Finerwine kit. Maybe next round...

 

[BMarNJ]

Nice @heatherd ! You’ve got this well thought out. I do spring and fall with a juice pail and 36 lbs of grapes (crushing and pressing by hand which I enjoy at that quantity) and two winter kits to round out my batches. 140 bottles over the year. I just find the kits boring after doing all the messy grape handling. But good quality kits make good wine and that schedule works for me.