Wine Kit Instructions as a base line for wine making?

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BernardSmith

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One of the key ideas that I take from this forum is to be patient. I have been looking at a number of instructions for wine kits published online and all of those I have looked at have the wine maker stabilizing and bottling within a few weeks of pitching the yeast. I understand that the kits are specially designed but the time line seems incredibly short compared to the time line that I am following as I make my fruit wines. Should I be following the time lines of the kit manufacturers?
 
No
Just like you can't make scratch-made cake from a Duncan Hines cake mix box.
 
Bernard:

Kit wine makers compete for your business in many ways, among them the number of days it takes to go from kit to stomach. They recognize that many kit wine makers are at least as interested in drinking their wine as in making it. (I know someone who makes beer instead of wine because he doesn't want to wait more than a few weeks to drink his brew.) Thus, their instructions show the shortest timeline, not the one likely to produce the best wine.

I like to follow at least a 90 day schedule, as shown in this WineMaker Magazine article:

http://www.winemakermag.com/component/content/article/26/850-making-your-kit-wine-shine-redeaux

It's just an example, but it illustrates the point. I also bottle considerably longer than the minimum recommended.

Having said that, a lot depends on the quality of the kit you choose. Should you select a kit below premium grade, I doubt it makes much difference.

Tony P.
 
It is what it is!

IT IS WHAT IT IS,4 WEEK KIT IS A 4 WEEKS,THE QUALITY OF THE END PRODUCT CAN BE GOOD ,BAD OR SO- SO. i THINK THIS WAS SOMEWHAT DISCUSSED IN A TOPIC THIS WEEK,WERE AS THE TIMING OF THE FINISH PRODUCT IS FOR MARKING AND THAT'S IT,HOWEVER,SOME GOOD TASTING PARTY WINES COME OUT OF THOSE 4 TO 9 WEEK KITS..IF YOU LIKE THAT STYLE OF WINE,AND MY WIFE'S RIDING BUDDIES ,LIKE THEM A LOT,GREAT FLAVOR COMBOS AND COST EFFECTIVE TO MAKE:mny
 
One of the things that kits have you do that you should NEVER do when working with fruit is the addition of sorbate very early on. Never sorbate a cloudy, unstabilized wine. It will not stop the secondary fermentation and you don't want to slow it down. Rack off gross lees and then put your carboy to bed on the fine lees for aging. Only sorbate wines that you backsweeten, right before bottling.
 
made from scratch!

No
Just like you can't make scratch-made cake from a Duncan Hines cake mix box.

Thanks, DoctorCAD, That was a very useful comparison. In our home we make everything from scratch (we even try to grow our own vegetables) which is one reason I have no intention of making wines from kits, but it is really useful to think about the instructions for kit wines as equivalent to the instructions for making bread, cake or soups from packaged mixes.
 
The wine kit instructions are not bad as a starting place for wine making. But so is the following list...
  • put the ingredients in a primary pail. stir well. add yeast
  • once the wine is mostly (or totally) fermented, transfer to a carboy or other secondary fermenter
  • once the wine is completely fermented, stabilize the wine (K-meta at minimum, K-sorbate if planning to sweeten)
  • allow the wine to clear (using clearing agents, if desired)
  • age & bottle, or bottle & age (your choice) or even age & bottle & age
One issue with kit instructions is the time frames. Thyey are too short, even for most of the kits.

Steve
 
Many of the wine kits have yeasts that are not so good. I was told to replace them with fresh yeast. I was also told to rack at least twice and no sooner than 3 weeks apart.
 
Many of the wine kits have yeasts that are not so good. I was told to replace them with fresh yeast. I was also told to rack at least twice and no sooner than 3 weeks apart.
I guess it depends what wine kits you are talking about, but the major brands include name brand yeasts, mostly Lalvin. Also look at the date on the yeast package before buying fresh yeast. In my experience, the yeast expires long after the kit.

The problem (for some people) is that Lalvin EC-1118 is the most popular yeast, and some brands ONLY provide EC-1118.

It is a perfectly good yeast, but some people think it should be replaced by something else.

Steve
 
I agree, just search the web and you can find so many opinions on wine making, instructions, best this and best that.
 
Many of the wine kits have yeasts that are not so good. I was told to replace them with fresh yeast. I was also told to rack at least twice and no sooner than 3 weeks apart.

I know that some wine makers replace the yeast contained in the kit and (outside of expiration issues) never understood it. I assume wine kit makers invest time and resources in determining which yeast to include in a kit and know more about what they're doing than we do. Frankly, if we come to believe that's not the case we shouldn't be buying their kits.

That's not to say I always follow their directions because I don't and believe my wine is better for it. But that's because kit instructions are created to allow anyone - even a first time kit maker - to make acceptable wine (meaning instructions are basic) and I can improve on those basic instructions. It's just that changing ingredients isn't part of it.
 
First off, I'd like to say regarding the original post: I did not start with kits because they are a bit expensive when you don't know what you are doing. I ruined my first batch, but it was a welches' white and therefore no big loss financially. If it had been a $100 kit I would have been more upset.

But since then I've learned things, mostly from this forum. I started doing kits, and I can say it has taught me a couple of things, particularly how to use bentonite, and how to degas properly, especially if you want to follow the timeline in the instructions. But I do kits mainly to drink because it's better and cheaper than store bought wines, so I only kinda consider them "mine" since I follow the script.

Now:
I guess it depends what wine kits you are talking about, but the major brands include name brand yeasts, mostly Lalvin. Also look at the date on the yeast package before buying fresh yeast. In my experience, the yeast expires long after the kit.

The problem (for some people) is that Lalvin EC-1118 is the most popular yeast, and some brands ONLY provide EC-1118.

It is a perfectly good yeast, but some people think it should be replaced by something else.

Steve

I tried splitting my first wine kit into 2 primaries, mainly because I didn't have one big enough to do it all in one at the time. But I thought, I'll try a different yeast in one of them, so I used RC 212 from Lalvin in one, the provided 1118 in the other. The 1118 took right off, but the RC 212 just would not, and after 4 days I took a bit of the must from the 1118 bucket and mixed it with the RC 212, which then promptly took off. I had been checking the SG for those 4 days, and the 1118 was going steadily down, and the RC 212 didn't change.

So, someone later told me that 1118 is used in kits because it may be the only yeast that can ferment those kits. Not sure how true that is, but my experiment of 1 seems to lend credence.
 
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So, someone later told me that 1118 is used in kits because it may be the only yeast that can ferment those kits. Not sure how true that is, but my experiment of 1 seems to lend credence.
RC-212 comes with a few KenRidge Showcase kits, and I'm pretty sure that it comes with some Winexpert kits. I know that some people have used RC-212 with some RJ Spagnols kits (ie replacing the included EC-1118).

Steve
 

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