Newbie winemaking ?'s from a veteran homebrewer

Kevin,

There's a great amount of good info passed around here, and even more collected at websites like Jack Keller's. As a fairly recent newby myself (2-3 yrs), I would also recommend you read "The Joy of Home Winemaking" by Terry Garey as a good intro to the hobby.

Bart

sorry- i meant because I will be drinking it - not that the kit yields a wine that expires quickly :)

Welcome! As someone who started making a batch before I had any clue of what I was doing, I'd read up on it first; Terry Garey's book is a good start, so is Jack's site

Most of the questions you had can be answered by going to either source. And you'll probably have a better wine because you've read up on it. You'll have to decide if you want to start with a wine kit, grapes, or on something else. I started with the something else, fruit wines and wines from 100% frozen Welch's juice. Patience (letting your wine age) is the most difficult thing to learn. Taste-testing is a necessary thing. Good-luck Darlene

Thanks for all the references. As a homebrewer, I'm accustomed to waiting, although my beers have lasted a max of about a year til they were gone. I have a melomel right now (in fact tried my first glass today, made it just one year ago, it was grand!) so I've dipped my toes in the "wine side".

Kevin

Kevin --

I jumped into kit winemaking from brewing about a year ago. In the brewing world, kit wine making would be called "dump and stir" It is pretty simple, and the directions in the wine kits are very straightforward. The 4 or 6 week kits lay out the process of what you're supposed to do on particular days nicely.

From a "veteran" of two wine kits, I'll give three observations: First, buy the best kit you can, expect to pay about $70US. Try to get a six week kit with the most juice, and go for a white. I did a chardonnay that came with the full amount of juice, and everyone raves about it. I would equate it to a $7 liquor store or $23 restaurant chardonnay. Second, if you enjoy the process of brewing, kit wine making will feel somewhat unsatisfying, because you "do" so little. Finally, corking sucks. If you hate bottling your brew, forcing a cork into a bottle is even worse. I capped my last batch of wine.

Bruce.

Actually, due to years of football, rugby, basketball, officiating...I've had back surgery a couple of weeks ago. Surgery is actually the reason I want to go to wine, so I don't have to boil, chill, rack, rerack...I want to dump, stir, forget (within guidelines) and enjoy. You could have gone all week without telling me about bottling. Maybe I'll keg.....that would be champagne, right? :D

Get a Portugese floor corker and your corking problems will be over. You can cork 30 bottles in less than 10 minutes with virtually no effort.

I've corked 2 Selection kits (30 bottles each, minus the one I sampled while bottling) with that plastic corker that came with the wine making kit. There I was...squating on the basement floor pounding the presoaked in hot water corks with the palm of my hand. that last for only a few bottles until I switch to a hammer. I picked up a floor corker yesterday, tried it out on an empty bottle and can't wait until I bottle my Chamblaise this Thursday!

My hubby got me a Portuguese corker for Christmas - wow, what a difference. Darlene

I'm actually doing the reverse, having made kits for a bit I'd like to make some beer. I made a Munton&Fison (?) all malt kit about 3 months ago and while OK it seems a bit carmelized and has a bit of a cider taste (no additional sugar though other than at bottling). I'm wondering how hard it would be to step up to all extract or perhaps extract with some steeping.

Don

The difference between beer and wine revolves around the fact that you have to boil your beer, which then involves cooling the wort. I don't know what kind of water you used or have but if you are going to use a kit, I recommend RO water. Most any city is putting chlorine, or worse, chloramines into their supply. You can filter (charcoal) the chlorine but the chloramine can't be filtered.

Extract with steeping is simple, just put the grain in a fine mesh bag and heat your water, holding the grain at about 160 deg for about a half hour. I recommend

for your start to beer.

You'll need a large pot 6-10 gallons to boil, some mesh bags for the specialty grains and hops, RO water, not tap water, and the rest is pretty much the same. Use a quality yeast like White Labs, make a starter and you'll come up with some great beer. I got into all grain then discovered no sparge mashing where you bump up the grain quantity by about 20%. I've won some blue ribbons with my oatmeal stout. It's a wonderful beer and as soon as I can set up a system where I don't have to haul 5 gallons of wort from the driveway to the basement I'll be back in business but with my back surgery, wine seems so simple and I can have my 19 year old pick up the carboy off the floor and set it on the bench for racking. Good luck and look up rec.crafts.brewing as well as the above link.

Kevin

FYI, treating the water with sulfites is reported to neautralize the chlorine and/or chloramine. It really doesn't take much (compared to wine making).

I treat all of my brewing water this way now.

Andy

Does anyone have a citation for this reaction, or know the reaction itself?

I'd also heard that SO2 neutralizes chlorine, but then I hear LOTS of things, so I've stopped believing most of them.

:-)

Dave

-- Dave

**************************************************************************** Dave Breeden snipped-for-privacy@lightlink.com

David Breeden wrote, concerning use of sulfites to neautralize chlorine and/or chloramine"Does anyone have a citation for this reaction, or know the reaction itself? I'd also heard that SO2 neutralizes chlorine, but then I hear LOTS of things, so I've stopped believing most of them."

Dave - My local water contains chlorine and chloramine. In addition to making wine I make a lot of beer. It's been my practice to remove these chemicals for all my beer and winemaking water. I used to filter but now use sulfite. The reaction given below was provided by A. J. deLange, a well known beer maker and scientist that posts frequently on the Home Brew Digest;

Reaction between chlorine and bisulfite ~ (S2O5-2) + 4Cl + 3H2O ---> (2 SO4-2) + (6H+) + (4Cl-) With Chloramine the reaction is ~ (S2O5-2) + 2H2NCl + 3H2O ---> (2SO4-2) + (2H+) + (2Cl-) + (2NH4+)

These reactions are reported to be very quick. A way to check this out is to add a very small amount of Kmetabisulfite or a small fraction of a Campden tablet to a glass of stinky chlorinated or chloraminated water. The chlorine smell is gone quickly. The use of sulfite has saved me a lot of filter exspense over the years.

Bill Frazier Olathe, Kansas

Thanks so much, Bill!

That's incredibly useful to know.

And might help explain why my actual sulfur additions (with KMS dissolved in tap water) are so much lower than my theoretical sulfur additions.

I take it that the Cl- is volatile enough to gas off quickly?

Dave

**************************************************************************** Dave Breeden snipped-for-privacy@lightlink.com

David C Breeden wrote "I take it that the Cl- is volatile enough to gas off quickly?

Dave - I think so. I make up brewing water, which is a mixture of tap water and RO water, in 10 gallon batches. I add the K metabisulfite to this water and don't notice a big chlorine odor. The chlorine odor that is present in my KC area water just goes away.

Bill Frazier Olathe, Kansas

Hi, Bill -

Just curious: Why not use 100% R.O. water for brewing? I can't see any good reason to pollute your brew with tap water - unless you live in Lake Tahoe, e.g.

Tom S