[milbrosa]

I'm about to buy a couple of summer wine kits to make some light, easy-drinking social wines for summer BBQs and parties. The type of wines I'm referring to are the RJS Orchard Breezin' kits and the Mosti Mondial Summer Breeze kits.

For these kinds of events, I'd like to avoid bottles. I expect the wine to be consumed rapidly and in volume, so I don't want to spend a lot of time and effort bottling a wine that isn't intended for cellaring.

I found these 2.2 gallon spigotted mylar bags, and I wonder if anyone here has used these for their wines?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/30-Mylar-2-Gallon-Water-Wine-Storage-Bag-Spigot-/190598362590?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2c608c 35de

I gather that these are not a normal retail item, but numerous survivalist sites and ebay sellers offer them at a reasonable price. The sellers claim that these are the bags that box wines are packaged in. If so, it would seem to be a great packaging system that home winemakers could take advantage of for early-drinking non-cellared wines. They might work well for Skeeter Pee too.

Three bags is all that would be needed to package a finished six gallon kit of wine. Has anyone here tried them?

[harleydmn]

Here are some that are a lot cheaper

http://store.homebrewheaven.com/55-liter-wine-waiter-bag-p86.aspx

[milbrosa]

Thanks harleydmn. It's good to have multiple sources. Those are 5.5 liter = 1.45 gallons, and that is a nice size.

One minor correction to note, however, is that they are not cheaper per item and not cheaper in terms of equivalent volume either. They are, in fact, considerably more expensive. Those are $2.95 each, not counting shipping. The ones in the ebay add I referenced are 30 for $25.95, less than a dollar each and with a capacity of 2.2 gallons. Even with the shipping of $12.95, that comes to $38.90 for 30 of them, which is still a good bit cheaper than those 5.5 liter bags.

You'd need three of the 2.2 gallon ones to bag a 6 gallon kit. That is a total cost under $4 even if you include the shipping cost. I don't know what the shipping is for the 5.5 liter ones, but you'd need 4 of them to fit almost all of a 6 gallon kit, at a cost of $11.80 plus the cost of shipping.

They are still reasonably cheap, just not as cheap as the 2.2 gallon ones on ebay.

[harleydmn]

Sorry I thought it was only 3, I looked at the picture instead of reading, my mistake

[robie]

The Wine Maker's Toy Store (one of our sponsors) sells "Wine on Tap".

This is a special holder/dispenser for special plastic wine bags, similar to what you get in a box wine. A single set comes with the holder/dispenser and 3 bags. One 6-gallon kit fits into 3 bags. The bags will keep the wine fresh for six months. You can order the nags separately in sets of 3 bags.

I make summer wines each April and I always use this system. I make a white and a red, so I own 2 of these sets.

The summer wine goes too fast to have to deal with bottles. I would not recommend Wine On Tap for a really nice wine. They are sort-term use only.

[milbrosa]

robie, thank you, that is exactly the sort of confirmation I was looking for. And yes, it is summer wines I'm interested in bagging this way. As you say, it is just too much bother to bottle wines that are going to be consumed rapidly.

You know, I looked on the Fine Vine Wines online catalog before I even posted this and I didn't notice that Wine on Tap system. It was listed in the "bottles" category, and I didn't think to look there, especially since I didn't specifically know what I was looking for. And for some reason, none of the google searches I did turned up that system either. A lot of homebrew stores sell it, I see. Of course, I'll pick one up from George at FVW since that is my local hbs. I'll be buying my summer wine kits from George too.

[cpfan]

I know that some people filll the bags that the wine kit juice/concentrate came in. They are not the same material, and I have no idea what the results are like.

To do this you need a snap-on tap similar to the ones on the bags already discussed. Way back about 2002, the taps that I sold in my LHBS did not fit the bags from one or two brands, but I don't recall which brands.

Steve

[milbrosa]

I thought about saving those bags from the last two kits I did, but they were huge, one 16 liter and one 23, and I wasn't sure I would be able to figure out a tap system for them.