Equipment list help.

[Rusty Nesmith]

Thanks for the heads up Rocky. I was thinking about canceling it but then thought for my first time I will try the cheaper kit. If I mess it up I would rather lose $69 instead of $120. I will definitely remember that when I buy the next kit.

 

[mainshipfred]

Thanks for the heads up Rocky. I was thinking about canceling it but then thought for my first time I will try the cheaper kit. If I mess it up I would rather lose $69 instead of $120. I will definitely remember that when I buy the next kit.

Rusty, there is another benefit to buying 10 liter kit in it will come drinkable faster. It will still take longer than the instructions lead you to believe but not as long and a better quality kit. The first few batches are always the hardest let age and rightfully so.

 

[Fuzzywuzzy]

Hello. I am new and have been looking at kits online. I have a couple of places local to buy from and would rather support them. I have worked up a list and would appreciate any help to make sure it is everything I will need. I am planning to start with wine kits and not grapes or fruit. Here is my list.

8 gallon fermenter bucket with lid,
6 gallon glass carboy,
1 drilled bung,
2 air locks,
Auto siphon racking cane,
5 feet of tubing,
Siphon hose shutoff clamp,
Bottle filler,
Carboy cleaning brush,
Triple scale hydrometer,
Three piece thief,
Adhesive thermometer for the fermenter,
One Step to clean everything,
A stir tool that goes in a drill for mixing and degassing.

Thanks for looking. If you see something I am missing or don’t need Please let me know.

Hi all,

I'm somewhat new here, too. I am going to try to make red wine from a frozen pail for the first time. I have done beer and a couple white wine kits from juice (5-6 gals.) so I have a lot of the equipment already, including, I think, everything in the above list (or the equivalent). What other equipment do I need to add to the above list to do 1-2 red wine frozen pails? I think I need everything that one needs for fresh grapes except the destemmer/crusher. Here's my list so far, please add to it:

Fermenting vessel - I have an 8.5 gal food grade plastic fermenter I originally bought years ago for beer. It's well designed with a spigot at the bottom and an air-tight screw-on lid about 10-12" diameter. I used it successfully for 5 gal white wine juice kits. Could I use it without the lid to ferment a singe 5-gal pail of red wine? If I do two 5-gal pails, would a 20-gal fermenter be the appropriate size?

Cap punching tool? Let me know if I need anything specific.

Fractomer? I have a glass hydrometer but the MoreWine! manual says that for red wine must you have to take out a sample and put it in a blender before taking a Brix reading. That seems like way too much work every time you want to do a sugar reading. A fractometer may be a worthwhile investment, no? Any particular kind, digital?

Thermometer? speaking of digital, I was just planning to use my instant-read digital kitchen thermometer (the kind you poke a roast with). Please advise if that's a bad idea. Don't worry, I'll sanitize it !

PH test? What equipment do I need to buy?

Acidity test? Same question, what is the best thing to buy.

Wine press??? These are expensive online, like $600 and up. Plus they look huge. So I guess I could find someone that will rent one to me, drive to pick it up, sanitize it, use it, clean it again, and return it. What a pain. Are those really my choices, purchase for $600+ or rent? What if I just racked the free run out of the fermenter then, to press the cap, I just put a big spaghetti colander on top of a 6 gal bucket and pressed the cap gently to strain it? Wouldn't that work?

3 gal carboy? It sounds like a 5 gal pail of must is going to produce only about 3 gal wine and I don't have that size.

Again, please add anything I omitted from the two lists above (mine and the OP's) for pail vinification. Any commentary/recommedations on equipment are welcomed, as well.

Last question while I have you, not equipment related, but fermentation and storage temp related. It's still warm in my neck of the woods; my house temp is usually upper 70s until well into the fall. I was going to wait until November to order my pails - by then the house temp is around 65-70F day and night. Then, after the wine is in a carboy, I need to store it for 9-12 months, right? So during this 9-12 mo period do I continue to keep the wine indoors where temps are 65F-80F year round, or is that too warm? If so what should I do? I don't have a cellar or anything like that. Just an attached garage which gets broiling hot in the summer.

Thank you for your advice, everyone!

 

[mainshipfred]

Hi all,

I'm somewhat new here, too. I am going to try to make red wine from a frozen pail for the first time. I have done beer and a couple white wine kits from juice (5-6 gals.) so I have a lot of the equipment already, including, I think, everything in the above list (or the equivalent). What other equipment do I need to add to the above list to do 1-2 red wine frozen pails? Here's my list so far, please add to it:

Fermenting vessel - I have an 8.5 gal food grade plastic fermenter I originally bought years ago for beer. It's well designed with a spigot at the bottom and an air-tight screw-on lid about 10-12" diameter. Could I use this without the lid to ferment a singe 5-gal pail of red wine? If I do two 5-gal pails, would a 20-gal fermenter be the appropriate size?

Cap punching tool? Let me know if I need anything specific.

Fractomer? I have a glass hydrometer but the MoreWine! manual says that for red wine must you have to take out a sample and put it in a blender before taking a Brix reading. That seems like way too much work every time you want to do a sugar reading. A fractometer may be a worthwhile investment, no? Any particular kind, digital?

Thermometer? speaking of digital, I was just planning to use my instant-read digital kitchen thermometer (the kind you poke a roast with). Please advise if that's a bad idea. Don't worry, I'll sanitize it !

PH test? What equipment do I need to buy?

Acidity test? Same question, what is the best thing to buy.

Wine press??? Expensive online, like $600 and up. Plus they look huge. So I guess I could find someone that will rent one to me, drive to pick it up, sanitize it, use it, clean it again, and return it. What a pain. Are those really my choices, purchase for $600+ or rent? What if I just racked the free run out of the fermenter then just put a big spaghetti colander on top of a 6 gal bucket and pressed on the skins gently to strain it? Wouldn't that work?

3 gal carboy. I have a 5 gal and a 1 gal carboy but it sounds like a 5 gal pail of must is going to produce only about 3 gal wine.

Again, please add anything I omitted from the two lists above (mine and the OP's). Any commentary/recommedations on equipment are welcomed, as well.

Last question while I have you, not equipment related, but fermentation and storage temp related. It's still warm in my neck of the woods; my house temp is usually upper 70s until well into the fall. I was going to wait until November to order my pails - by then the house temp is around 65-70F day and night. Then, after the wine is in a carboy, I need to store it for 9-12 months, right? So during this 9-12 mo period do I continue to keep the wine indoors where temps are 65F-80F year round, or is that too warm? If so what should I do? I don't have a cellar or anything like that. Just an attached garage which gets broiling hot in the summer.

Thank you for your advice, everyone!

I would think you may want to get a 20 gallon brute if you're doing 2 batches. If only doing one the shoulders of your fermenter will make it a little trying with the punch down.

They make large potato mashers with long handles for this. When I first started grapes I used a piece of 2" PVC pipe and just stirred it. A little hard to get started but it works just fine. Once you create the vortex the skins sink.

All you need is a strainer to get a sample. Just force the strainer into the cap (it's easier to do this right after you stirred or punched down) and take your sample. I use a turkey baster to extract the juice. A refractometer's readings have to be adjusted once alcohol starts being produced.

I would say a cheap wine making thermometer would work just fine. Although your meat thermometer should work just fine as long as it reads that low of a temp.

Your frozen must is going to come with the specs and probably going to be in a proper range for pH and TA. I wouldn't be concerned about a pH meter right now. Once you get into making wine from grapes them a pH meter would be a necessity.

Presses don't cost that much unless you are looking for something large. A #20 or #25 should be all you need and if you shop wisely you can probably get one for $200 to $250. Still a large investment if you decide it's something you don't want to continue with. You can make a bucket press or hand squeeze through a mesh bag but for the best yield you will need a basket press.

As long as you have the proper sized vessels for the finished wine any combination will work.

You probably just neglected to mention it but one of the most important things you want to be concerned with is SO2. Test strips although only so accurate and hard to read with red wine is the most economical. You may also want to consider putting the wine through MLF which required no equipment just the bacteria and nutrients. As far as temperatures go 80 is pushing it but otherwise a consistent temperature far more important.

Hope it helps and good luck.

 

[Rice_Guy]

I like "toys" and my wife thinks I collect too many, possibly am guilty as she charges.

Most things we use for wine can be improvised, remember that folks made red wine by stirring the cap with their hands or a clean board 200 years ago. As a startup measure volume and chemicals and take notes.

If you stay with grapes, God made grapes as a perfect fermentation feed stock. If I am doing country wine then all my test equipment is trying to copy what grape juice does. The company sells into the jail/ prison system and we note (as well as the guards) a creative hobby fermentor improvises with resources at hand.

If you read through the thread there are excellent suggestions, and at this point I may have more than one copy of most tools, ,,,,, but the wife is right