My wine making room and cellar

[rodo]

In November of 2008 I picked up my first wine kit, a fermenter bucket, 2 carboys and some other miscellaneous wine making odds and ends. My wine making space was to be a rather large (about 25 -30 square feet) seldom used shower stall in our spare bathroom. By Autumn of the 09 when it was time to go to the winery and pick up 4 buckets of juice the shower stall could no longer contain all "the wine making stuff ". Plus, toating full buckets from the downstairs kitchen to the upstairs bathroom and full carboys back to the kitchen for bottling was becoming a problem.

Several times my wife (who loves wine, and fully supports this hobby)commented that we really needed to have a wine making room. The question was just where? Although this building is quite large it is both our home and business and I've had 28 years to fill it. About 6 months ago I finally decided if I rearranged a storage area and got rid of some stuff I could have a wine making room and cellar.



OK I have no idea why you have to click on the first photo if anyone can enlighten me I'd sure appreciate it

Anyway first pix is what you see when you enter the room pix 2 is looking back at the entrance pix 3 is the door to the cellar pix 4 the wine rack pix 5 looking back at the entrance

Rod

 

[Wade E]

Very nice, love the knotty pine!

 

[rodo]

A few more photos
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[Runningwolf]

WOW, really cool. I am jealous!

 

[NSwiner]

WOW you got some serious money invested in that . Very nice set up . The only thing I'm wondering is how do you get the carboys on the top shelf They are heavy buggers ???

 

[Green Mountains]

That professional double bay sink is awesome. Fill one side with sanitizer and you can go to town sanitizing.......anything that could fit in the bay.

What have you got going in those primary and caboys??

 

[rodo]

WOW, really cool. I am jealous!

Thanks but if you had seen my previous setup you would probaply have thought "what a mess"

Rod

 

[rodo]

WOW you got some serious money invested in that . Very nice set up . The only thing I'm wondering is how do you get the carboys on the top shelf They are heavy buggers ???

Thanks
I've probably got more money into it than I realize but definitely some serious time. If I had to hire people to do this I could never afford it.
Buying and bartering for the materials and making everything myself was the only way I could do it.

Luckily for me I'm in the fabricating/welding business and one of my customers is a refurbisher of commercial dishwashers and kitchen equipment and also that in a space the size of a two car garage about 20 feet from the wine room my father had put together a nice wood working shop.

As for the carboys, they are definitely heavy but OK for now. However I have already started drawing up plans for a sort of mini walkie forklift as at the age of 52 I am certain my days of lifting carboys are numbered.

Rod

 

[Leanne]

Lovely. Really lovely. It looks easy to keep clean too.

 

[djrockinsteve]

((As for the carboys, they are definitely heavy but OK for now. However I have already started drawing up plans for a sort of mini walkie forklift as at the age of 52 I am certain my days of lifting carboys are numbered.)) QUOTE

You Got That Right. My Birthdays later this month (52 I think). Everytime I pick one up even to move it a short distance I always think "Damn, This Things Heavy". Oh the sacrafice!

 

[xanxer82]

Very nice!

 

[rodo]

That professional double bay sink is awesome. Fill one side with sanitizer and you can go to town sanitizing.......anything that could fit in the bay.

What have you got going in those primary and caboys??

That sink was actually holding up the completion of this project. About the time I first started thinking about doing this I had to visit my kitchen customer to look at a project we were working on. As I was eyeing his extensive scrap yard of stainless counters and sinks salvaged from years of kitchen jobs I asked "John, I've been thinking about making a wine room do you think you could fix me up with a sink and counter?" He said "sure no problem" so I thought about what I wanted and needed, drew up plans for the wine room and asked him to try to find something at least 10 feet long with 2 sinks more or less centered and 1 of them being 16 to 18 inches deep. Or more than likely the individual components.
He says" shouldn't be a problem. Over the months as the room is progressing I keep checking in from time to time "did you find me a sink yet?" "no but don't worry I will". About 2 months ago I started being a little more persistent, (the squeaky wheel gets the grease strategy) The problem he was having was finding the large deep sink. At that point I started thinking about making the sink bowls myself, I'd need to make a die set to form the offset for the sink drains but it was doable, the rest was just standard fabricating. At least I could get a counter top from him .... However before I ever left to pick up the counter I had made up my mind that if it wasn't for some reason what I wanted I'd "bite the bullet" and make my own.

When I got to his place his guys had a counter out for me however it had a bullnose on the back side instead of a backsplash. There was one out in the bone yard that would have worked but it was behind a lot of other stuff and this being the end of January in New York state it was frozen to the ground and not going anywhere soon.

I did however find the rinser, drain bowls, and hot & cold lever valves there for 0$$ so it definatley wasn't a wasted trip.


In the carboys left to right,
top shelf, 2 with Niagara, Apple,
middle shelf, 2 Herron Bay Wild Berry Chianti, 2 concord, 1 Herron Bay Peach Chardonay
bottom shelf, 3 empty, 1 Herron Bay White Grenache Blush


On the shelf you can't see is a Herron Bay Raspberry Zinfandel

Rod

 

[rodo]

Lovely. Really lovely. It looks easy to keep clean too.

Thanks, my wife and I were able to use it for the first time last weekend and it was great. Especially not having to hurry around and then get cleaned up again so she can make dinner.
Rod

 

[buffaloricky]

Awesome cellar, I am in awe.

 

[Bailey]

Awesome setup!

Did you make the bottle racks? They look custom - very nice.

 

[rodo]

Awesome setup!

Did you make the bottle racks? They look custom - very nice.

Thanks

Yes I made them also, each will hold 22 cases (264 750ML bottles and 132 1500 ML).

I used 1000 feet of 1/4 inch hot rolled round (steel) to make the rings.

I have several pictures of them as we were making them if anyone is interested.

Rod

 

[Green Mountains]

I have several pictures of them as we were making them if anyone is interested.

Rod

Ummm YES....I'd also like to place an order.......... heh

 

[skiboarder72]

This is just incredible! Amazing work!!

 

[rodo]

The first thing I needed to do to get this project going was to find a piece of pipe or tube that when the round rod was wrapped around it would produce a ring of the correct size. This was no problem for the large bottles I used a piece of 3 1/2" pipe with an outside diameter (OD) of 4.02" (Smaller sizes of pipe like this are measured to the closest 1/2" of the ID) which made the perfect ring for this size bottle. However when it came to the small bottle rings 2 1/2" pipe made a ring that was about 1/8" too small, 3" pipe made a ring way too big. What I needed was something with an OD of 3 1/16" what I had was 2 1/2" pipe with an OD 2 7/8" and a piece of 3" OD tube with 1/16" wall thickness. Obviously the 3" tube wouldn't fit over the pipe by 1/16" but if I could force it would be just right.

In my shop is a door way with an 8"x8" lintel and about 10" of wall above it I stood the 2 1/2" pipe in the doorway, stood the 3" tube on the pipe, put a 10 ton porta power (like a hydraulic bottle jack) on top of the tube, fired up a huge propane rosebud torch and began heating and pushing the tube down onto the pipe. To tell you the truth I really had my doubts that this was going too work, but I needed a wine rack and "FALIURE WAS NOT AN OPTION". To my surprise and delight it did work quite nicely I now had my 2 mandrels.

The next thing to do was to weld four 20' sections of rod end to end into 80' pieces (80' was the distance from the front door of the shop to the lathe).

I hope this haven't bored everybody But if someone else decides they want to try this and they have the skills and the tools with the discription and the photos it will save them alot of time.

The first picture is the mandrel for the large rings in the lathe chuck the rod is inserted into a hole drilled in the mandrel.

 

[rodo]

Photo 1
The speed of the lathe is set as low as it goes, I think about 60 rpm,put your gloves on, grab the rod, turn the lathe on, keep your hands back, as it winds the rod be sure each row is against the last one, and KEEP ONE FOOT READY TO HIT THE BRAKE (this lathe has a foot brake bar that at this speed will instantly stop the spindel)

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Photo 2
When you get to the end of the rod and spop the spindel DO NOT JUST LET GO OF THE END there is alot of energy stored in that coil.