wine making cart??

[cindyjo]

Hello all,
As I am cranking out several kits recently, I have been frustrated by my inability to stay organized with my limited room. I generally make wine in my kitchen but need to store my supplies in the basement which means a lot of running around finding stuff. I have been thinking about buying one of thoserolling kitchen carts/islands that are available. This would allow me to get my carboy's off my kitchen table and I can store supplies in the drawers and cabinets. My question is, do any of you have suggestions on what kind of counter top to get with this?? I am afraid that wood would get quickly stained by wine, granite may crack, vinyl may stain, and I think the stainless is not that nice looking. BTW I will have room in my kitchenfor this cart soon as my dog is not doing real well and will probably not be needing her crate much longer

. I would appreciate any advice.
Cindy

 

[Wade E]

A laminate countertop would be easily cleaned and very durable for this purpose. Any cabinet shop or even Home Improvement center such as Lowes or home Dept could have 1 made up for you pretty cheap. Wish i was near ya as Id make 1 for you myself for free.

 

[cindyjo]

I have many times wished you were near me Wade as you have always been so helpful. I can look into having a laminated one made. My husband just said he knows someone who make countertops, maybe he could do something for me. Need to by the cart first. There are some real nice one's out there.

 

[Tom]

Remember when you get a cart get one that you can lock at least 2 wheels.

Nothing like having the cart move while transferring etc..

 

[Wade E]

Excellent thought there Tepe, make sure to get a cart rated for some good weight and one with caters near the corners as a carboy on the edge can tip a cart fast. Remember that each carboy when full is about 60 lbs each!

 

[cindyjo]

Good advice from both of you, is this something commonly done??. Did you mean castors near the corners?? I am not sure what caters could be. I plan on getting a decent quality cart that is made of good materials that will stand up to this use.

 

[Wade E]

Yes casters! dang stupid fingers!

My mind knows what its doing but fingers dont listen.I have a cart that was made to hold audio/visual stuff and is heavy duty but the casters arent to close to the edges and i had a few cases of bottles on one side and a 6 gallon primary on the other and went to move it and almost lost all the cases of bottles last weekend!

 

[cindyjo]

I will learn from your experience, thank you again. Time to look for carts

 

[swillologist]

Casters are the wheels cindyjo. But I'm not sure if that was what you were asking thought.

 

[cindyjo]

Thanks swillologist. I did know that casters are wheels, but Wade skipped the "s" which confused me slightly.

 

[cindyjo]

I like this one, if the site copied right
http://www.ekitchenislands.com/islands-&-carts/wood-top/deluxekitchenislandcottageoakfinishwithwoodtop.cfm

 

[Tom]

I like this one, if the site copied right
http://www.ekitchenislands.com/islands-&-carts/wood-top/deluxekitchenislandcottageoakfinishwithwoodtop.cfm

Now thats an "island"!
I see that you also have 2 locking casters. With all that storage you can keep all of your winemaking supplies in it.

 

[Wade E]

I love it, just wish it specied how much of a load it can take. Do you plan on having several carboys full on this or just working and transporting 1 or 2 on this?

 

[cindyjo]

I was going to call the company and ask ifhow much weight itwould take, I usually just do one kit at a time so it is rare that I would have two carboyson there. I like that it has different size drawers and big cabinets

 

[Wade E]

And a spice rack for when you do a fruit wine as ypu will need lots of additives for that. In Example> Ascorbic acid, k-meta, sorbate, acids, nutrient, energizer, and etc.

 

[cindyjo]

It has a little rack on the side, good place to put my spray bottle of sanitizer and other things. I am still doing mostly kit wines, not sure I am ready for the fruit wines. My husband and I are still talking about what we can put on the top of the cartto prevent damage/staining. We have some leftover linolium from the kitchen floor we could cut a piece of? We like the idea of being able to cheaply throw it away when it gets too dirty.

 

[grapeman]

Go to your local building supply house and get some of the material meant for bathroom walls. It is water resistant and cuts easily. It isn't wood or fiberglass- more of a hard fiber. It will scratch with sharp objects, but does last a long time. I typically have used it for sales counters in my vegetable stands whre there is a lot of soil and other dirty stuff slid across it. You can tack it down and apply corner molding over the edges. I generally had to replace a well used counter about every 5 years of heavy daily usage. I will go look under lowes and see if I can find it listed and put a link here in a while.


Well here is a brochure of the type of product: not from Lowes, but if you bring the brouchure there or Home Depot they can probaly direct you to a like product.


http://www.decorativepanelsinternational.com/pdf/dpi_full_line.pdf

 

[ASAI]

<a href="http://www.ekitchenislands.com/islands-&amp;-carts/wood-top/dropleaftablewith2squarestools.cfm" target="_blank">
I did some serious consideration of using this one from the same site.


Throw away the stools, and there is a nice storage area for (2) 6 Gal carboys








http://www.ekitchenislands.com/islands-&amp;-carts/wood-top/dropleaftablewith2squarestools.cfm</A>

 

[cindyjo]

Thanks for the advice to both applemanand ASAI.
Appleman, I will look into that material
ASAI- youare right about the room for storage but I really wanted more drawers and enclosed storage as I am leaving this in my kitchen

 

[Wade E]

Cindyjo, I think the one you are looking at ahs much more structure to it making it a better product IMO. I also believe that you could possibly still put those 2 carboys underneath on this 1 if you wanted to as it has removable shelves inside.