smurfe
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Hello friends, we are finally going to finish our tutorial. I apologize for the delay in finishing but as you all may have read I had issues with my corker so I was unable to finish my tutorial. I have started and finished 2 more kits since this one was actually ready to bottle. The original kit we started with was one of the 2005 Wine Expert Limited Edition kits, the CALIFORNIA LAKE COUNTY TRIO BLANCA.
The rest of this tutorial is going to look a little weird as I took up where I left off with this kit with one of the newer made kits, the 2005 WE LECHILEAN MAIPO VALLEY CARMENÈRE / CABERNET SAUVIGNON and the CALIFORNIA AMADOR COUNTY PETITE SIRAH ZINFANDEL. I do have a few pics though of the original batch:
As you can see it finished quite nice. Crystal clear and luscious. What comes next can differ for you as this is the time a little different tactics will come into play.
SO what do we do next? Well, as you know, pull out those directions and read the next steps carefully as you have all the other steps. I even re-read the old steps up to where I am at now and then continue to put it all into perspective.
After you do a few kits you are going to see that the directions are different with different kits and at times you will catch errors. I found an error in one of my kits I started a couple days ago. I mention this in reference to adding extra sulfite's. Some kits say to add it when you perform your final racking for clarification (Step 4) and some say to add it right prior to bottling.As I re-read my directions I noticed that this kits directions said to add it at the final racking. I didn't do this but since this is an optional step, no biggie.
I did add 1/4 tsp dissolved in some water at bottling though as I always do. This is the same stuff that was in Packet # 2 that you added to stabilize your wine. You have to buy extra to do this step. A 2-3 oz. packet will last quite a while as you use it 1/4 tsp at a time. Some will buy large quantities and use it for sanitation as well as preservative.It will allow your wine to age longer and not oxidize as soon. This is only needed if you feel your wine will be in the bottle over a year or so. If you are making a kit you will drink up fast, (like an Island Mist kit)don't worry about it.
So lets get to the final steps. We have racked the wine and stabilized it and now it is clear and ready to bottle. Lets get our bottles ready first. Drag out your stock of empties and sort out 30 like bottles. This is where I am going to jump around a bit. These pics were taken when I bottled other kits and is not the original kit. So bear with me. The actual kit isn't as important as the procedures.
After we have found our bottles we want to use, we need to clean and sanitize them. I normally fill one of my sinks with cleaner or sanitizer, which ever it is and dip the bottles in the solution. I then rinse the exterior of the bottle under running water in the other sink.
This next picture isn't as good as I hoped it would be. My photographer didn't zoom in like I would have. I wanted to show you the bottle sanitizer up close. This tool is a bowl like contraption that you pour sanitizer in. There is a spout on it that is spring loaded. You place a bottle over the spout and push down. It act like a pump and squirts the sanitizer up inside the bottle. Give it 2-3 squirts and then place you bottle on the bottle tree to drain. That is the thing to my right with all the bottles on it.
After all of your bottles are sanitized we are ready to bottle our wine. Here is the next part where individual preference comes into play. As you an see the wine is quite clear and is ready to bottle. Your instructions may say to filter the wine if you choose to.
I personally filter all of my wines for peace of mind after I sucked up sediment in my very first kit. Is it necessary? No, not at all. you will read in the forums where some never filter any of their wines or may only filter their whites. I filter all of mine as I own a filter machine.
This is a Mini-Jet filter. I am not going to go into much detail as we have a nice Mini-Jet tutorial here already. I just thought I would show the steps as I filtered the wine. Here are the filter pads you put in the Mini-Jet. You must soak them in water for a minute or so prior to placing them in the machine. These filter pads come in 3 different stages, I use the middle rated pads. It will filter and polish the wine but not strip anything out of it.
When I bottle, I normally transfer the wine to my sanitizedprimary bucket (bottling bucket) for the process. Since I always filter I have to transfer it anyway so as the bucket is easier to clean, this is what I use. If you are not filtering, you can bottle right out of your carboy.
Yes, I even filter my Red wines as well
So now we have the wine filtered and ready to bottle. We will now set up our bottle filler. This contraption creates a siphon and flows into our bottle we are filling. Once the bottle is full it will switch to another bottle as not to over flow the bottle we are filling. You can stop the overflow to the other bottle and this is what I do. The "spare" bottle is just that, a spare.
I normally don't even bottle any overflow wine and just drink it when I am finished bottling. There is never more than a glass anyway. I don't bottle this as if you aren't paying attention, you will introduce a lot of oxygen into the bottle as there is airflow for the siphon of the bottle you are filling. I guess you just have to see and hear it bubble to know what I am talking about. The bottle to the left is the one I am filling. The olive colored bottle to the right is my over flow.
You will need to practice a bit with this device to get it set right. I would suggest using your bucket with water in it and a few bottles to practice with this tool prior to bottling your wine. You need to assure it is set so the wine fills to about 1/2" to 1" below the cork. You don't want too much head space as this will introduce oxidation to your wine.
If you notice that blue bowl on the sink, that is my corks that I have rinsed and sanitized. The bowl has some sanitizer in it and the corks just sit in it till I cork them. You do not have to soak corks overnight like some sites will say. Just rinse them and insert them. Being wet makes them seat better.
So now we are ready to cork that bottle. I am using an Italian floor corker. Do your self a favor. Get a floor corker. There are two popular, the Italian and the Portuguese. Either will do you fine. I like the Italian as it has all steel and brass parts and is taller but the Portuguese is fine as well. Either one will make you happy.
SO we have the bottle set in place. You will see the seat base and on the top plate there is an indentation for the lip of the bottle to line up with. So lets drop in a cork
Give the handle a pull
There you have it. Now repeat this about 30 times and you are done. Your wine is bottled and ready to age. Place the bottles upright for a couple of days to assure the corks seat before you lay the bottles on their side. You lay the bottles on their side to keep the corks moist. If you use synthetic corks, you can store upright.
Now it is time to clean everything up real good and after it is dried, put it away. You don't really have to sanitize after you use it but you can if it makes you feel more secure. I just clean real good with a cleaner that might or might not be a sanitizer, rinse it off, let it dry and store it away. When I am ready to use again, I use the cleaner again and now spray the surface down with a spray bottle with Sodium Metabisufate in it.
So here we have 59 bottles of wine I bottled. I did 2 kits in a row today as I was behind and both were ready. Since I got my corker replaced I had absolutely no issues and every bottle corked perfectly.
So there you have it. We have went through the steps to make a kit wine. As you can see it is not tough at all. If you read and follow your directions and practice good cleaning and sanitation practices you wine should be perfect. Practice patients and don't rush anything. Time is your friend in the wine making world. I actually feel blessed that I am always on the go and am always a few days behind each step.
After you have made a few kits it will all be 2nd nature to you but don't forget to read the directions for every kit. It is good education as well as a good refresher. You never know to, they may of changed something or revised the directions to a better procedure. Just read them. It only takes a few moments and will assist in guaranteeing your success.
Once again, I apologize for taking so long to post all of this. I also apologize for not being as detailed as I originally hoped to be but I really want you to read your directions and not follow "MY" directions. I just wanted to share my passion with any newbie and assist in showing undecided new winemakers just how easy it is to make your own wine at home.
If you follow everything as stated, you will produce a wine that is better than those you buy in the store as long as you practice patients and let the wine properly age. Don't really consider the wine ready to drink until it has been in the bottle a year. Some kits though will mature quicker so it all depends on what you are making but even the quick kits will mature with age and only be better.
So thanks for taking the time to read allof this and I hoped you enjoyed it. I had a blast producing it and hope soon I can make a more organized tutorial that is more detailed that can be downloaded in a PDF format for easy reference.So long now, I need to check my Kumquat Mead to see if it is ready to bottle as well. Looks like it is to me! This stuff is so sweet it would kill a diabetic on the spot!
Thanks!
Smurfe
Edited by: smurfe
The rest of this tutorial is going to look a little weird as I took up where I left off with this kit with one of the newer made kits, the 2005 WE LECHILEAN MAIPO VALLEY CARMENÈRE / CABERNET SAUVIGNON and the CALIFORNIA AMADOR COUNTY PETITE SIRAH ZINFANDEL. I do have a few pics though of the original batch:
As you can see it finished quite nice. Crystal clear and luscious. What comes next can differ for you as this is the time a little different tactics will come into play.
SO what do we do next? Well, as you know, pull out those directions and read the next steps carefully as you have all the other steps. I even re-read the old steps up to where I am at now and then continue to put it all into perspective.
After you do a few kits you are going to see that the directions are different with different kits and at times you will catch errors. I found an error in one of my kits I started a couple days ago. I mention this in reference to adding extra sulfite's. Some kits say to add it when you perform your final racking for clarification (Step 4) and some say to add it right prior to bottling.As I re-read my directions I noticed that this kits directions said to add it at the final racking. I didn't do this but since this is an optional step, no biggie.
I did add 1/4 tsp dissolved in some water at bottling though as I always do. This is the same stuff that was in Packet # 2 that you added to stabilize your wine. You have to buy extra to do this step. A 2-3 oz. packet will last quite a while as you use it 1/4 tsp at a time. Some will buy large quantities and use it for sanitation as well as preservative.It will allow your wine to age longer and not oxidize as soon. This is only needed if you feel your wine will be in the bottle over a year or so. If you are making a kit you will drink up fast, (like an Island Mist kit)don't worry about it.
So lets get to the final steps. We have racked the wine and stabilized it and now it is clear and ready to bottle. Lets get our bottles ready first. Drag out your stock of empties and sort out 30 like bottles. This is where I am going to jump around a bit. These pics were taken when I bottled other kits and is not the original kit. So bear with me. The actual kit isn't as important as the procedures.
After we have found our bottles we want to use, we need to clean and sanitize them. I normally fill one of my sinks with cleaner or sanitizer, which ever it is and dip the bottles in the solution. I then rinse the exterior of the bottle under running water in the other sink.
This next picture isn't as good as I hoped it would be. My photographer didn't zoom in like I would have. I wanted to show you the bottle sanitizer up close. This tool is a bowl like contraption that you pour sanitizer in. There is a spout on it that is spring loaded. You place a bottle over the spout and push down. It act like a pump and squirts the sanitizer up inside the bottle. Give it 2-3 squirts and then place you bottle on the bottle tree to drain. That is the thing to my right with all the bottles on it.
After all of your bottles are sanitized we are ready to bottle our wine. Here is the next part where individual preference comes into play. As you an see the wine is quite clear and is ready to bottle. Your instructions may say to filter the wine if you choose to.
I personally filter all of my wines for peace of mind after I sucked up sediment in my very first kit. Is it necessary? No, not at all. you will read in the forums where some never filter any of their wines or may only filter their whites. I filter all of mine as I own a filter machine.
This is a Mini-Jet filter. I am not going to go into much detail as we have a nice Mini-Jet tutorial here already. I just thought I would show the steps as I filtered the wine. Here are the filter pads you put in the Mini-Jet. You must soak them in water for a minute or so prior to placing them in the machine. These filter pads come in 3 different stages, I use the middle rated pads. It will filter and polish the wine but not strip anything out of it.
When I bottle, I normally transfer the wine to my sanitizedprimary bucket (bottling bucket) for the process. Since I always filter I have to transfer it anyway so as the bucket is easier to clean, this is what I use. If you are not filtering, you can bottle right out of your carboy.
Yes, I even filter my Red wines as well
So now we have the wine filtered and ready to bottle. We will now set up our bottle filler. This contraption creates a siphon and flows into our bottle we are filling. Once the bottle is full it will switch to another bottle as not to over flow the bottle we are filling. You can stop the overflow to the other bottle and this is what I do. The "spare" bottle is just that, a spare.
I normally don't even bottle any overflow wine and just drink it when I am finished bottling. There is never more than a glass anyway. I don't bottle this as if you aren't paying attention, you will introduce a lot of oxygen into the bottle as there is airflow for the siphon of the bottle you are filling. I guess you just have to see and hear it bubble to know what I am talking about. The bottle to the left is the one I am filling. The olive colored bottle to the right is my over flow.
You will need to practice a bit with this device to get it set right. I would suggest using your bucket with water in it and a few bottles to practice with this tool prior to bottling your wine. You need to assure it is set so the wine fills to about 1/2" to 1" below the cork. You don't want too much head space as this will introduce oxidation to your wine.
If you notice that blue bowl on the sink, that is my corks that I have rinsed and sanitized. The bowl has some sanitizer in it and the corks just sit in it till I cork them. You do not have to soak corks overnight like some sites will say. Just rinse them and insert them. Being wet makes them seat better.
So now we are ready to cork that bottle. I am using an Italian floor corker. Do your self a favor. Get a floor corker. There are two popular, the Italian and the Portuguese. Either will do you fine. I like the Italian as it has all steel and brass parts and is taller but the Portuguese is fine as well. Either one will make you happy.
SO we have the bottle set in place. You will see the seat base and on the top plate there is an indentation for the lip of the bottle to line up with. So lets drop in a cork
Give the handle a pull
There you have it. Now repeat this about 30 times and you are done. Your wine is bottled and ready to age. Place the bottles upright for a couple of days to assure the corks seat before you lay the bottles on their side. You lay the bottles on their side to keep the corks moist. If you use synthetic corks, you can store upright.
Now it is time to clean everything up real good and after it is dried, put it away. You don't really have to sanitize after you use it but you can if it makes you feel more secure. I just clean real good with a cleaner that might or might not be a sanitizer, rinse it off, let it dry and store it away. When I am ready to use again, I use the cleaner again and now spray the surface down with a spray bottle with Sodium Metabisufate in it.
So here we have 59 bottles of wine I bottled. I did 2 kits in a row today as I was behind and both were ready. Since I got my corker replaced I had absolutely no issues and every bottle corked perfectly.
So there you have it. We have went through the steps to make a kit wine. As you can see it is not tough at all. If you read and follow your directions and practice good cleaning and sanitation practices you wine should be perfect. Practice patients and don't rush anything. Time is your friend in the wine making world. I actually feel blessed that I am always on the go and am always a few days behind each step.
After you have made a few kits it will all be 2nd nature to you but don't forget to read the directions for every kit. It is good education as well as a good refresher. You never know to, they may of changed something or revised the directions to a better procedure. Just read them. It only takes a few moments and will assist in guaranteeing your success.
Once again, I apologize for taking so long to post all of this. I also apologize for not being as detailed as I originally hoped to be but I really want you to read your directions and not follow "MY" directions. I just wanted to share my passion with any newbie and assist in showing undecided new winemakers just how easy it is to make your own wine at home.
If you follow everything as stated, you will produce a wine that is better than those you buy in the store as long as you practice patients and let the wine properly age. Don't really consider the wine ready to drink until it has been in the bottle a year. Some kits though will mature quicker so it all depends on what you are making but even the quick kits will mature with age and only be better.
So thanks for taking the time to read allof this and I hoped you enjoyed it. I had a blast producing it and hope soon I can make a more organized tutorial that is more detailed that can be downloaded in a PDF format for easy reference.So long now, I need to check my Kumquat Mead to see if it is ready to bottle as well. Looks like it is to me! This stuff is so sweet it would kill a diabetic on the spot!
Thanks!
Smurfe
Edited by: smurfe
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