Wine Making in the Garage

[Ambugaton]

Hello all,

So I have recently added wine making to my list of hobbies... and so far I have built a solid work bench and dedicated a portion of my garage towards it. You know how new hobbies go... you kind of get lost in them and get tunnel vision on other stuff that you may want to use your garage for.

My problem is... I do quite a bit of woodworking (nothing fancy just speaker cabinets or little construction projects here and there). Recently I was routing out some dovetails and had forgotten how messy that was. I don't have an exhaust system set up... afterwards I realized how consistently the sawdust settled on everything. Luckily I did not have any wine in primary.

I guess my question is: Does anyone else have this issue of being stuck in the garage for your wine making? Just looking for ideas. I know I could install an exhaust system and take certain precautions (move any batches inside when doing other work). I was thinking of hanging something like a curtain rod that would swing out in a half circle covering the wine area, but I don't know if that would adequately keep out additional dust or debris from other garage functions. Anyways... just talking myself through this mostly. Thanks for any input.

 

[bakervinyard]

@Ambugaton, If you use Hungarian oak for woodworking you could kill 2 birds with one stone. Lol, Bakervinyard.
Seriously I'm in the same boat. I tried to polyurethane a learning tower for my grandson in my wine room a few weeks ago. The smell was unbelievable. The wife said its going to ruin your wine. I moved everything to the garage.

 

[crcarey]

I had a similar situation but in my basement. I built a fermentation chamber. Nothing crazy, if you search Google pictures you'll find a boy load of ideas. It also helped me to keep my ferment temps at 70 with a temperature controller on a space heater.

 

[Johny99]

I have wrestled with the same thing. My winery started as the back end of my wood shop, as I used it to finish the house. I did a curtain as you describe. It kept the big stuff out, but the fine sawdust, you know, coated everything. I was careful to move anything smellier than sawdust outside or to the garage. Now as both things have grown, the winery has taken over the wood shop. Wood shop has moved into the two bays left in my shop building, sister-in-law's apartment is the rest. However, primary also takes place in there, as well as car restoration.

It is a case of moving stuff, cleaning and keeping odors under control switching from activity to activity. I've resigned to only working on one at a time and converting the space rather than try to work around incompatible stuff.

Of course, I also say just one more piece of furniture. The list is now three::

 

[NorCal]

My garage winery.

 

[Ambugaton]

Thanks for the input and sharing my frustrations!! Haha. I didn't even THINK about fumes of some of the lacquers/polyurethanes I sometimes use...

So, based on these concerns... I am scheming on the wife to turn one of our spare rooms into a full wine making room. Currently it holds mostly fishing/hunting/outdoors gear, but that stuff can easily stay in the garage.

 

[Kraffty]

I did the Kitchen/Garage/Patio/Den thing for a short time too but really wanted a dedicated area. Do you have room for an addition to the garage? The problem with this hobby is that (for me at least - so far) you keep wanting more - equipment, supplies, grapes/kits, storage and it all takes room. I've shared my solution a few times but you can always build your own space. A few here have even bought storage shed kits from Home Depot or similar and converted them as wine areas.

Mike

 

[Johny99]

Thanks for the input and sharing my frustrations!! Haha. I didn't even THINK about fumes of some of the lacquers/polyurethanes I sometimes use...

So, based on these concerns... I am scheming on the wife to turn one of our spare rooms into a full wine making room. Currently it holds mostly fishing/hunting/outdoors gear, but that stuff can easily stay in the garage.

Spare room with a sink and floor drain and you'll have it