newbie question: start with a 5g carboy or go smaller?

go for the 5 mr.moody.i myself been into just a short time.but you found some of the greatest wine people rite here.every thing i had a question or a problem was solved that same day .i would say your in good hands.so go for the the 5!!!!!!!!!!!

I use a variety of different carboys. some 4 liter wine jugs (the cheap carlo rossi stuff) for really experimental things.

If they have a reasonable expectation of tasting good i make 3 gallon batchs, which will give you much more flexibility on tasting during bottle aging. just so you know, wine kits usually come in 6 gallon batch sizes.

I would encourage you to go bigger than 1-gallon as well. I know there are winemakers (esp. fruit winemakers) that normally make 1-gallon batches, and that initially seems like a reasonable way to test different fruits, proportions, techniques, etc. On the other hand, though, you normally aren't investing a lot of money in raw ingredients (esp. for fruit wines), but they will often take a year or two to really be drinkable. My theory (at least for most people) is that time is more valuable than the potential money savings. With a 1-gallon batch, you'd be lucky to get five bottles at the end of the process; four is more likely. At the end of a year or two, you might have a bottle left; if it turns out to be really great, you will be disappointed that you don't have any more. My personal rule of thumb is that I don't make anything less than 3 gallons in size; that makes at least a full case of something, plus a couple of bottles for occasional quality assurance purposes. :-)

Doug

When I started out, I faced the same decision you did. I went with

1-gallon jugs, and I don't regret it. Cost, more possibilities to experiment, and more practice are all advantages of this rout.

I was able to buy a gallon apple of apple juice in a glass jug at Trader Joe's for about the same price as an empty 1-gallon jug at the homebrew store, so you could say my first wine was "free" - and it was a very nice wine.

You can also experiment more. I'm a tinkerer, so that was a big deal for me. Many recipes call for 1/4 tsp/Gallon of tannin. Ever wonder what it would taste like if you didn't add any? Or if you added 1/2 tsp? Make three 1-gallon batches and find out.

Finally, for the same volume of wine, you end up syphoning, measuring, etc about five times as much. When you're just starting out, this means you get more practice. Speaking as someone who found himself sitting on the kitchen floor, barefoot and in shorts, amongst broken glass and a gallon of fermenting wine, I say you'll need that practice. Of course, this extra practice will becomes extra work at some point. Still most people who stay with the hobby add to their collection of containers and this would be the perfect time get some 5-gallon carboys.

Erroll

On the other hand, it's harder to make good wine in smaller containers, so for beginners, 5 or 6 gals might be more appropriate. I'd say try both and go with what you prefer.

Pp

Erroll Ozgencil wrote:

A lot of the kits are 6 gal, so that might be better than a 5 gal

Hello, I started with one gallon carboys and I've never gone bigger. I've been making wine for almost 5 years, and I make only fruit, veggie, and herb wines. You can always go bigger once you get the hang of things and once you figure out what you like. Thing is...you might think you like the taste of a particular fruit wine, but then after you make it...you find out you don't. Now you've 25 bottles of something you don't like, rather than 5 bottles. If for some reason a batch goes bad, and it can happen even to the best of us, throwing away 5 gallons (would be hard for me), rather than 1 gallon. It took me about 2 batches of wine per fruit to find out what I liked. The first batch was "what I thought I would like" and the second batch "what I actually liked". And yes you do have to wait a fair amount of time for fruits and veggies to mature, but the important thing here is to alternate a batch which takes a lot of aging, and then make your next batch one that can be drank early. This way, while you're waiting for a Blackberry wine to mature, you can try your Strawberry wine, or fruit juice wines. And yes, it does take awhile to build your wine stock up (on 1 gallon batches) so you can walk down to your wine racks to pick whatever you like out, but hopefully you're always trying something new each year to surprise yourself in a few years. Good-luck with whatever you try. Darlene Wisconsin

"Mr. Moody" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@j33g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

It does make a difference, in a few ways. Fruit wines lend themselves to smaller batch sizes. As others have said though, smaller is not necessarily better. If you are very happy with the results you won't get a lot of return on the effort and there is a pretty good chance you will be happy with the results.

To be honest wine from grapes makes itself, if you stay out of it's way and follow a few simple rules the chances of you making a mediocre batch are next to nothing.

Fruit wines, on the other hand have more variability built into them. The ripeness of the fruit and the predominant acid are two of the major ones. That said, Jack Keller has a website full of fruit wine making recipes that are very well spoken of. I would not buy 1 gallon carboys, any restaurant in your town probably has a house brand of wine they go through quickly so a few phone calls might get you all you need there.

I usually steer beginners to wine made from grape juice, it's (for lack of a better term) idiot proof. Welches Niagara is well spoken of; it's also a good blending stock for many fruit wines.

This year I made 17 gallons of fresh strawberry wine, I have about 4 gallons left. It was pretty popular.

I guess what I'm trying to say is don't worry about making mediocre wine; whether you make one gallon or 50 the process is the same and the rules are too, and they are easy to understand. You are not going to make mediocre wine if you ask questions of this group when you are unsure of the next step. Everyone here was a newbie at some point, there are no stupid questions.

Joe

I agree with Erroll and Dar V. It's good to start out with one or more

1-gallon carboys. It gives you a lot of flexibility to make smaller batches or to experiment. And you can always add more if you want to make larger batches.

However, if you make 1-4 gallons of wine in a 5-gallon carboy, you run the risk of unnecessary spoilage, since the jug now contains at least a gallon of air.

I think of the carboys in terms of aggregate capacity. If a wine batch gets separated into 2,3,4 or 5 jugs, that's fine to me because they'll all get reunited at bottling.

I WILL SAY THIS: If you just plan on making kits and don't ever plan on making any smaller batches, a 5- or 6-gallon carboy is what you need (along with a 7-8 gallon primary fermenter). Practically all of the kits are designed for 5- or 6-gallon carboys.

I agree.

Frederick

Hi Mr. Moody

5 Gal. carboys are heavy and hard to handle. If you have a little extra space, you can avoid using them altogether.

For small batches I would recommend the following. Get a 2 1/2 or 3 gallon primary. I use and old diaper pail with close fitting (but not air tight) lid. (do they still sell those things ??) Scrounge some 4 liter wine jugs _and_ some 1 gallon jugs. Use these as follows:

Start primary at 4 1/4 liters. This allows you to transfer (rack) to secondary

4 liter jug while leaving behind most of the lees. When the wine has cleared, rack to a 1 gallon jug, again leaving behind the lees and there is no need to top up.

For larger batches. Get a 9 or 10 gallon primary. Buy _both_ 2.8 gallon _and_ 3 gallon carboys. Start primary at 6 1/4 gallons (6.5 ??). Rack into the 3 gallon carboys leaving behind the gross lees. When clear, rack into 2.8 gallon carboys. Again, no need to top up. HTH

Frederick

Mr. Moody,

You have no doubt read the many various and valid opinions presented in response to the question you have posed to the group at large. I'll make my own contribution. As a person who started making beer, but very quickly moved to almost exclusive mead and wine production (as a qualifier, I made my first beer in over three years last Sunday), I found that the 5 gallon size my beer equipment was set up for was a wonderful size for a mead or a wine. The overriding reason why:

A one gallon batch is simply more difficult to make. I need to leave enough headroom for krausen no matter what the fermenter size is, and then after fermentation I need to find a means to top off. With one gallon batches I have tried making a stronger batch, counting on topping off with water to bring the gravity back into style, but this is a hit or miss proposition. With a five+ gallon batch I am able to target my OG and FG much more precisely, and a small amount of topping off has little impact on the batch as a whole. Racking a one gallon batch is less efficient than racking a 5+ gallon carboy. I lose more volume, percentage wise, with a one gallon batch than I do with a five+ gallon batch. A five gallon+ batch is more easy to protect from the perils of oxygen than is a one gallon batch. I typically add 1/4 Tsp. K-metabisulfite per 5 gallons at each racking. Measuring 1/4 Tsp is fairly trivial, but measuring 1/5 of 1/4 Tsp is less trivial. And, if I made the best of all possible wines, and it was a one gallon batch, I would forever regret not having made a five+ gallon batch. And replicating a one gallon batch in a five+ gallon size is far less trivial than replicating a favored five+ gallon batch.

I _have_ made a few one gallon batches of mead. And a few three gallon batches, since I have acquired 2 three gallon carboys. But these have all been fairly experimental batches, where I have not been confident of the outcome. This is for me the entire purpose of a smaller batch size. It gives me the opportunity to try something radical, experimental, or downright odd. If it works, then I can make a five+ gallon batch, and if not I can move on without having wasted a large investment in ingredients. But, and again for me, any batch that is worth making is worth making at the five+ gallon level. I have never regretted making a batch of mead or wine at a volume of 5+ gallons, while I have occasionally regretted making a one gallon batch.

Cheers, Ken Taborek

Just a suggestion on this - if you make a solution in small amount of water, and have a pipette or syringe, you can get 1/5 of 1/4 tsp pretty easily. And the same approach applies if you want to use less than 1/4 tsp for some rackings.

Pp

I have been toying with the idea of getting a kit wine and making only half and saving the other half to use as grape concentrate additions for fruit wines that use them as body enhancers. I am guessing that that is not a cheaper way of doing it than just buying the half liter bottles of concentrate, and it is tough to know if they are at the same concentration level. Also storing the concentrate until use would take some thought and engineering. But it would give you an idea of the varietal that you are using (the concentrate in bottles are just a blend). I have noticed a slight foxiness to a couple wines I have made using concord concentrates from the grocery store that I would like to get around in the future.

So in that case...a 3 gallong carboy could still work. If I could work out the specifics it might be a viable option to new winemakers....I am guessing that you would have to freeze the remainder....and it would take a while to use up. So there are some definate cons.

..snipped

It may be easier just to make the whole kit and then use the wine when you make the fruit wine. You could either blend after the fruit wine is made or use some wine instead of water when starting the fruit wine.

If the latter, personally, I would get the yeast going in the fruit wine before adding the kit wine to reduce the chance of oxidizing. You would also have to take the aclohol content of the wine into account when calculating sugar additions to the fruit wine.

Andy

Basically I agree with Andy. Once you open it you should use it right away. Also with kits, you generally get what you pay for. A higher price kit will maker very nice wine. A medium price kit will make mediocre wine. And so forth. Also all the additives are set for making a whole batch.

When mixing grape concentrate with fruit, you can improve the fruit but the fruit will generally dominate and the high price for the better kits probably do not mater. For blending with fruit, the cheaper tinned concentrate will probably do just fine. In fact, for making light wine fruit wines (apple, peach, etc.), one of the best grape concentrates to add is Welch's frozen Niagara concentrate. It blends very nicely with fruits and makes a very nice wine on it's own. Very cheap. See Jack Keller's site for frozen fruit recipes.

As far as carboy size, even when making a kit, you can make it in smaller carboy's. Just use several of them. When you rack, do all of them at one time and rack into a common bucket so they blend and then put them back into as many carboys as you need. It is just convenient to use one big carboy. An advantage of using multiple carboys, especially after the initial fermentation, is that you can bottle part of it early and leave the rest for longer bulk aging.

Ray

Many of my fruit wine recipes call for non labrusca white grape concentrate. Nearly of my reds do as well. I hardly ever make a wine sewwter than semi-sec and even in the lower amounts some foxiness does show through in certain wines.

There are exceptions, I do like sweeter welches jug wines. They are like a bad habit that I still have from my teenage years drinking purple passion.