Kit winemaking, what is the next step

[4x15mph]

I have made 9 kits up to this point. What would be the next step as far as making homemade wine versus making wine from a box?

 

[Deezil]

A frozen juice or must bucket, a fruit wine from real fruit, or a mead from scratch.

You'll want a pH meter though, at least. On top of the hydrometer and TA kit
They help immensely when dealing with raw ingredients.

You can probably get a few of these batches under your belt, and if you wanted to push it, you could try wine grapes this fall. You'd just want to buy them from somewhere that could crush and destem them for you.

 

[Boatboy24]

Juice buckets are the next logical step. Many of them come pre-balanced (but it is still a good idea and good practice to measure yourself). As Deezil said, get a pH meter first. The juice buckets are relatively cheap and if your supplier has them, you can always add a lug of grapes in a mesh bag to the fermentation to give you some additional body/tannin. You can just squeeze the bag as you would a grape pack from a kit and at that quantity, you wouldn't need additional equipment like a crusher or press.

 

[bkisel]

I would strongly suggest Dragons Blood (of which I've made 5 batches after about 11-12 kits) or Skeeter Pee (Which I haven't yet tried but know that a lot of others on this forum have.). Good luck!

 

[fabrictodyefor]

There is something to be said about it all being your "own". It is a little far from harvest time, but in the summer and fall is a great time to gather fruits and freeze them for wine making in the winter! (I found that I get too many fruit flies if I try and make wine in the summer!) But your fruit wines will take 10-18 months to be ready, so it is always fun to make a Dragon's Blood which is ready in a month!

 

[Fog]

When I got to that point I also did a batch of Dragon Blood, I learned a lot and it was quick and not expensive, so if I messed it up it was no big deal. After that I ordered a couple of pails of frozen grapes from Wine Grapes Direct. They are one of the sponsers here and when I talked to them I let the know this was my first attempt at grapes so they sent me all of the additives I would need and a nice cheat sheet. Well worth it...

 

[RedPlanetWinery]

Keep in mind that kit wines can go from primary to bottle in less than two months. Wines from juice or grapes are going to tie up carboys (and space) for significantly longer.
I took the plunge from kits this past fall. My juice came from a local NY vineyard so I had to deal with high TA and strong acid levels - the pH meter is a definite must-have.
I've also been making semi-educated guesses on k-meta additions because I don't have a way to test for free SO2 (something you don't have to worry about with the kits). I'm making red wines so trying to use color-changing test strips doesn't seem too likely to work well. Would love to get a Vinmetrica someday.
I wish I had been more aware of the role of oak during fermentation as opposed to thinking of it as just post-fermentation. I also did not plan for keeping the juice cold prior to fermentation while dealing with acid adjustments so I rushed it a bit. I have since acquired a used large fridge for things like that and cold stabilizing.
That said, I have found the move toward homemade to be very gratifying. There have been plenty of "wish I had known then" moments but recent sampling (when I racked after cold stabilizing) indicate that I haven't botched it. And I am already eager for the next run.

 

[4x15mph]

Thank you all for the feedback and references. I am going to look at the dragons blood and I will order some juice from wine grapes direct. I heard "cheat sheet" and that is the type of prescribed approach I can follow.