WineXpert Using less water in a kit

[Zinfandel]

I am just new to making kit wine, only on second batch right now. And it got me to wondering; if I add too much water, the wine will be slightly diluted and not taste as good. On the flip side, what if I add slightly less water than the kit calls for?

Will it be slightly more concentrated, and therefore a more rich wine? Or would it be messing with the chemistry of the kit too much?

 

[codeman]

How much are you talking about? Less than 1/4 gallon would concentrate the flavors and up the alcohol. If you're thinking 1 gallon less then I think you'd really mess up the chemistry.

 

[Zinfandel]

I'm Canadian, so I only think in Litres! A standard batch is 23 litres, and I was thinking about starting with maybe 21 or 22 litres. Not sure how low to go without ruining it.

 

[richmke]

Depends upon the kit. When doing a 12 Liter kit, some people purposely use less water. When doing an 18 Liter kit, I would do it per instructions.

Part of the benefit of wine barrel aging is concentrating the wine (more evaporation). So, one would ask: Why not just start with less water.

Well, that upsets the balance of the wine during fermentation. Could be ok. could be bad.

Because I miss measured, my first kits were short water. They were also 12 L kits. They turned out fine.

 

[bkisel]

When doing any kit I would personally not go any more or less than 750ML of a 23 liter kit. Mater of fact I limit myself to using no more than .5L for topping off and then if need be use similar wine or marbles. I will cut back a little on the water when doing a kit with grape skins because I've found that following the instructions to fill to the 23L mark and then adding the grape skins has resulted in some overage later in the process, so now I adjust about 500ML down in the primary to avoid that.

 

[Boatboy24]

I successfuly did two very low end kits early on and ony reconstituted to 5+ gallons. They turned out fine. I would not do it with a mid or high end kit though.

When I say "low end", I'm talking $45 kits from Amazon.

 

[Mashaca]

I successfuly did two very low end kits early on and ony reconstituted to 5+ gallons. They turned out fine. I would not do it with a mid or high end kit though.

When I say "low end", I'm talking $45 kits from Amazon.

Hi there, did you find the wine a bit sweet and fruity since making 5 gallons instead of 6? Mine is a bit sweet and fruity but everybody loves it still. How long does it take to mature? Do you bulk-age?

 

[wineforfun]

Hi there, did you find the wine a bit sweet and fruity since making 5 gallons instead of 6? Mine is a bit sweet and fruity but everybody loves it still. How long does it take to mature? Do you bulk-age?

It depends on what kit you are making, yours must have been a sweeter one to start with.
I have made them with 5 instead of 6 and turned out not sweet at all, however, they were intended to be dry reds.

 

[Boatboy24]

Hi there, did you find the wine a bit sweet and fruity since making 5 gallons instead of 6? Mine is a bit sweet and fruity but everybody loves it still. How long does it take to mature? Do you bulk-age?

It still fermented dry, so there wasn't any residual sugar. As these were my earlier kits, I did bulk age, but only for a couple months.

 

[Ajmassa]

Will it be slightly more concentrated, and therefore a more rich wine? Or would it be messing with the chemistry of the kit too much?

There is a few detailed threads posted by Joeswine ("tweaking cheap kits") that frequently mentions doing this. And just as Boatboy said, when used it's almost always in a very cheap kit. (Never a quality kit) Bumping a 6 gal down to a 5 gal for more flavor as you thought.

Hi there, did you find the wine a bit sweet and fruity since making 5 gallons instead of 6?

If this wasn't supposed to be a sweet and fruity wine, then that wouldn't have happened from using less water. Winemaking logic would tell me the batch did not ferment enough, and had it been a full 6 gal it would've been even sweeter.

 

[MHSKIBUM]

Over the past 2 years I've added less water to Costco Argentia wine kits. I use a 19 litre carboy instead of 23 litre carboy and the difference is amazing.
You get 50 bottles (25 X 2) rather than 60 bottles but 10 fewer bottles is a small sacrifice for the quality improvement. So far, I've experimented with the Merlot, Pinot Noir, White Zinfandel, Chardonnay and Shiraz. At first I made 23 litre and 19 litre batches of each to compare.
I'll never go back to 23 litres.
One more trick. The White Zinfandel is a pretty good wine that comes with a liquid sweetener made of wine sugar that you're to add at the end. I don't like my wine that sweet so I stored up a bunch of the sugar packets.
I now add the packet at the beginning with the juice to up the sugar and therefore the alcohol level. It's not a huge increase in alcohol but I can tell the difference in side by side taste tests and prefer it.
The best Argentia wines to my taste hands down are the Pinot Noir and the Chardonnay. Wine snobs I know who always shunned homemade wines tell me — it's not horrible. One even said, thinking it was an insult, my wine was no better than McManis. Well in Canada (Ontario) McManis costs $20 (Cdn) a bottle. My wine costs $2.

 

[Rotawine]

Over the past 2 years I've added less water to Costco Argentia wine kits. I use a 19 litre carboy instead of 23 litre carboy and the difference is amazing.
You get 50 bottles (25 X 2) rather than 60 bottles but 10 fewer bottles is a small sacrifice for the quality improvement. So far, I've experimented with the Merlot, Pinot Noir, White Zinfandel, Chardonnay and Shiraz. At first I made 23 litre and 19 litre batches of each to compare.
I'll never go back to 23 litres.
One more trick. The White Zinfandel is a pretty good wine that comes with a liquid sweetener made of wine sugar that you're to add at the end. I don't like my wine that sweet so I stored up a bunch of the sugar packets.
I now add the packet at the beginning with the juice to up the sugar and therefore the alcohol level. It's not a huge increase in alcohol but I can tell the difference in side by side taste tests and prefer it.
The best Argentia wines to my taste hands down are the Pinot Noir and the Chardonnay. Wine snobs I know who always shunned homemade wines tell me — it's not horrible. One even said, thinking it was an insult, my wine was no better than McManis. Well in Canada (Ontario) McManis costs $20 (Cdn) a bottle. My wine costs $2.

Would you follow the same kit instruction as if you were using the full 27 litres for the 19 litres?

 

[MHSKIBUM]

Would you follow the same kit instruction as if you were using the full 27 litres for the 19 litres?

Yes, use the same instructions for both the Chateau Argentia and the Cellar Master kits. You will get surprisingly good wine just by shorting the water by 4 litres to sit in a 5 gal (19 L) carboy.
I get further improvements by:
1. Adding dried grape skins before introducing yeast. Since the price of the dried stuff has more than doubled during Covid, I've substituted fresh BLACK table grapes crushed with most juice removed (before crushing weight 1 kg per carboy). If you can find black seeded grapes, all the better. Crush, stems and all, and put the skins and other solids into a cheesecloth bag. Wait two days until fermentation is humming and stir daily to get the most out of the grape skins.
2. I delay bottling and rack in a carboy filled to the top for at least 6-9 months. I rerack and add KMeta every three months. If the wine variety is an oak lover, I add a half cup of toasted oak chips into the carboy to mimic the effect of oak barrel aging.
These kits go on sale every few months so look for deals.

 

[Siwash]

Over the past 2 years I've added less water to Costco Argentia wine kits. I use a 19 litre carboy instead of 23 litre carboy and the difference is amazing.
You get 50 bottles (25 X 2) rather than 60 bottles but 10 fewer bottles is a small sacrifice for the quality improvement. So far, I've experimented with the Merlot, Pinot Noir, White Zinfandel, Chardonnay and Shiraz. At first I made 23 litre and 19 litre batches of each to compare.
I'll never go back to 23 litres.
One more trick. The White Zinfandel is a pretty good wine that comes with a liquid sweetener made of wine sugar that you're to add at the end. I don't like my wine that sweet so I stored up a bunch of the sugar packets.
I now add the packet at the beginning with the juice to up the sugar and therefore the alcohol level. It's not a huge increase in alcohol but I can tell the difference in side by side taste tests and prefer it.
The best Argentia wines to my taste hands down are the Pinot Noir and the Chardonnay. Wine snobs I know who always shunned homemade wines tell me — it's not horrible. One even said, thinking it was an insult, my wine was no better than McManis. Well in Canada (Ontario) McManis costs $20 (Cdn) a bottle. My wine costs $2.

I did this recently... in Jan. I added about 2 litres (1/2 gal) less than was is called for in the instructions. I tried it with the Merlot. From early taste tests I can tell the alcohol is up and the taste is more concentrated, more rich. It's better for sure...

 

[Siwash]

Adding dried grape skins

Can you please tell me where you get your dried grape skins?

 

[MHSKIBUM]

I bought them at my local winemaking store BUT the price is ridiculous. It went from $11.95 to $24.95. I now use black table grapes and squeeze out most of the juice.
Joeswine, who I consider the master of cheap kit tweaking, says not to remove the juice but to boil the grapes down skins and all to form a thick concentrate and then use what you need and vacuum seal and freeze the rest.
He prefers black Thompson grapes. I like the long, finger-like black grapes with seeds if you can get them. I haven't done the boiling down yet because grapes in Canada at this time of year are ridiculously expensive.
If you think of it, some of the much-awarded kits like the RJS En Primeur Super Tuscan or Amarone come with a two-litre, jam-like skin package that really brings complexity to the wine. Maybe they boil down wine grapes to make it. I hope this will bring the cheap kits closer to that level.

 

[Siwash]

Thanks... have you considered Zante currants? I've heard that they are actually a greek vinafera

 

[Cats]

I bought them at my local winemaking store BUT the price is ridiculous. It went from $11.95 to $24.95. I now use black table grapes and squeeze out most of the juice.
Joeswine, who I consider the master of cheap kit tweaking, says not to remove the juice but to boil the grapes down skins and all to form a thick concentrate and then use what you need and vacuum seal and freeze the rest.
He prefers black Thompson grapes. I like the long, finger-like black grapes with seeds if you can get them. I haven't done the boiling down yet because grapes in Canada at this time of year are ridiculously expensive.
If you think of it, some of the much-awarded kits like the RJS En Primeur Super Tuscan or Amarone come with a two-litre, jam-like skin package that really brings complexity to the wine. Maybe they boil down wine grapes to make it. I hope this will bring the cheap kits closer to that level.

So

BestwineAmerica Miracle Wine Cabernet Sauvignon red Style Grape Extraction- Wine kit Makes 23l of Wine is a 2lt grape extraction kit with no sugar added. I was wondering if you could add some of it to a Argentina wine kit and make it to the 23lt mark? Wonder what it would do as these Bestwine are fairly cheap.​

​

 

[AR324]

It may not help this time but in the fall buy a lug or two of grapes. Sort out the good grapes and freeze them. Then, you can make your own grape skin packs for future use.

I did that with a wine lovers Merlot and it made a noticeable difference in aroma, mouthfeel complexity. It wasn’t an awesome wine but very enjoyable.