Other Tweeking Cheap Kits

Mismost said:

She had taken a case to the beauty shop where she works. She claims the afternoons are much more pleasant now

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haha
So they drink and do hair? Awesome.

Wine and scissors.

wineforfun said:

haha
So they drink and do hair? Awesome.

Wine and scissors.

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Now you know how blue and spiked haircuts happen....If i had as much fun at work as those ladies, I would get fired!

cheap wine kits

Yes it's amazing how wine can bring people together no matter what they do for a living...

Checking In

BigSell said:

Joe,

Have two tweeked batches in the final stages of carboy aging. Both are WE kits prepared to 6 Gal.

First is a Pinot Noir, unfortunately I did not capitalize, just added golden organic rasins( thought was to preserve the Pinot color). Wine is really fruit forward and thin, going to add 1 Tsp of Tannin Riche, wait 3 or so weeks, filter and bottle.

Second kit is a WE Sangiovese, followed the Joe protocol, capitalized to SG 1.104, Med toast American oak in the primary. Once rack to secondary, added 1Tsp of genaric tannin. After 60 days tased so good the wife and I thought about just putting straws in the carboy and drinking! Going to taste in a few more weeks, may add some Tannin Riche now that I have some to see what it does. Will then filter and bottle, pretty sure this batch will not last, may have to get another one going fast.

What would you suggest for a dry Riesling?

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Joe,
Following up on Pinot and the Sangiovese. For the Pinot, did add the Tannin Riche to the secondary 90 days later filtered and bottled. Sangiovese, in addition to above I added 1.5 grams of Tannin Riche 90 days before filtering and bottling. Both wines aged for a total of 120 days in glass Carboy.

Now here is the problem, I should have not bottled these wines, cannot stay out of them, Sangiovese is better than the Pinot, I think it's due to the capitalization.
However both are very good!

Just picked up a WE Costal Red, still working on my Tweeks for this one, but in addition to the usual stuff I think I will try and pull the Cherry notes out on this one, might go with BM4X4 yeast and some Cherries in the primary/secondary, what do you think?

BigSell

Can you buy fresh cherries if so 16ozs. Should be enough,do the sautéed tweak,remenber how?if you use can cherries wash the contents off them first then sautéed add directly to the mix without cooling it won't hurt.. Good tweaking.jp

Okay so I'm staring at an Island Mist Coconut Yuzu Kit that I bought just because it really sounded good and I love coconut. I've never made a kit wine. I've done mostly fruit wines, squeezing the fruit bags in the primary. I've never made an all juice kit and I'm not really sure what tweeks that I would like to make. I like a very sweet fruity flavor and of course would rather the ABV be over the standard kit wine directions. So any advice would be appreciated before I throw this kit in the primary! Thanks in advance. I've read some of this thread so far and see a ton of great info!!

Will. Be back tomorrow,check back,thanks jp

JSquared said:

Okay so I'm staring at an Island Mist Coconut Yuzu Kit that I bought just because it really sounded good and I love coconut. I've never made a kit wine. I've done mostly fruit wines, squeezing the fruit bags in the primary. I've never made an all juice kit and I'm not really sure what tweeks that I would like to make. I like a very sweet fruity flavor and of course would rather the ABV be over the standard kit wine directions. So any advice would be appreciated before I throw this kit in the primary! Thanks in advance. I've read some of this thread so far and see a ton of great info!!

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JSquared...keep reading, it's a long thread and worth the time will invest. Joe laid all out really good.

My only problem is now with every kit, I want to tweak it! about to start my last two kits of the year and i am going to TRY and do them straight...no tweaks, except added time....and I am kinda dreading it.

@joeswine
Opened a bottle of the Fontana Malbec. 4months in bottle now. Pretty good. Somewhat fruity up front and then a nice subtle hint of oak. Plenty of alcohol at 14%. Very "happy" by the end of the bottle.

JSquared said:

Okay so I'm staring at an Island Mist Coconut Yuzu Kit that I bought just because it really sounded good and I love coconut. I've never made a kit wine. I've done mostly fruit wines, squeezing the fruit bags in the primary. I've never made an all juice kit and I'm not really sure what tweeks that I would like to make. I like a very sweet fruity flavor and of course would rather the ABV be over the standard kit wine directions. So any advice would be appreciated before I throw this kit in the primary! Thanks in advance. I've read some of this thread so far and see a ton of great info!!

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Never made that one but just finished a Green Apple Reisling by Fontana. Sweet wine. While some recommend adding 1/2 the fpac up front, I would stick with adding it all in the end. That is how I did mine, and it ended up nice and sweet, just the way my wife likes it.

Also, you will want to add some sugar or simple syrup up front to get the ABV where you want it. I would start that one around 1.080 - 1.085. Finish it around 11 - 11.5%.

Cheap kits

Mismost good advice,Bigsell the Sangiovese is the prince of Italian reds and I can understand the hard to keep away from mode>>,,,,Wineforfun not bad for everyday wines?????....Jsquared did you read the thread?? KEEP THIS ONE SIMPLE,NOYICE NOT QUITE 5.5 GALLONS THIS GIVES YOU A DECENT FLAVOR BOOST OF THE PINO GRIGIO

wineforfun said:

@joeswine
Opened a bottle of the Fontana Malbec. 4months in bottle now. Pretty good. Somewhat fruity up front and then a nice subtle hint of oak. Plenty of alcohol at 14%. Very "happy" by the end of the bottle.

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Easily one of my favorite wines and very easy drinker, so nice. Wife says I'm stingy with it...but it's really good at only a couple of months...I want to see what so time will add to it. Also the cheapest kit I've done.

tweaking inexpensive kits

WE'VE come along way since the beginning of this thread lets hear some pro's and con's. I just finished a Cabernet /merlot blend for a friend of mine .this one was a vintner kit I started in 2014.Boosted the Abv> TO 13% ADDED TWO CUPS OF FRENCH OAK CHIPS, in the primary added 8 ozs. of fresh crushed BLACKBERRIES to the secondary once the process was completed I racked it over and added a med toasted oak spiral to the carboy , racked down to a full 5 gallon level and added my eliminator to the top and let it sit for 2 years. this one was a master pieces of taste ,REALLY, great body, deep Merlo flavor balanced out with decent alcohol. I may not let him know it's completed??

Joe...I don't see a downside. I have tweaked every cheap kit I have done and I think they were all better wines than they would have been without the tweaks....especially the reds.

I have made mistakes, way overshot my SG on a Fontana Cab...it will not be Cab, but I'm trying to turn it into a decent sweet red wine...the flavor is there and it's got some punch to it! Have it soaking up some oak and may add more tannin powder to it...just gonna keep tweaking it. BTW...your picture shows two quart jars of simple syrup and that is too much...read dummy, don't just look at the pictures...my bad!

Added too much grapefruit zest to a Chard....learned how powerful zest is...but, last bottle was mellowing....again my fault!

Then there is the cheap tweaked Fontana Malbek that is just dadgum good stuff...that one has been declared great by half a dozen people and a family that just opened a wine tasting room here in town (interesting thing, they did not know anything about wine kits). I just hope my notes are good enough on that one to make it again! And I hope a couple of bottles make it to a year old.

I still learning and having fun doing it. Thanks Joe.

I'm just over 3 months into my Merlot. I've topped up twice now at racking with my red Zin to try to mellow it.

I dropped quite a bit of sediment after the last rack after fining. I wonder if it held quite a bit of it suspended with CO2.

I'll try racking once more shortly then going on to bottling if it's sufficiently degassed. My basement got fairly warm the other day as the furnace kicked in for the first time (I had the windows open upstairs and it was a cool night).

Cheat kits Sikedlemon

While your letting it sit did you through an oak spiral or some more oak into it? or is it at the tannic level you enjoy?

Tannins are fine to my poor taste bugs. It's the alcohol level, I believe, that it thrown off. But it could just be that it's young and needs to mellow.

I put my vacuvin on top of the bung and held it in place while I pumped it and I was able to pull a few bubbles to the top (nothing crazy) so I'm hoping after the next rack I'll give it a stir with the drill and it'll be fine.

what was your projective abv.? It will mellow out a bit over time.Stay the course.

Projecting to be about 13.5%. It may be the combination of the higher ABV and the CO2 that's giving me that flavor profile.

I racked both earlier this week and checked for CO2 and it's still there (they're both over 3 months now).
I gave it a bit of time with the drill right after racking and I whipped both batches last night again (as I still had some CO2).

I plan to be able to bottle tomorrow or Sunday.