I made three batches of wine about a year ago using Chilean grape juice and they turned out fantastic. I spent a lot of time on this forum and morewine researching and learning the process. It's been a while since I did it but I took fairly good notes.
The group buy for the Chilean juice didn't happen this year so I decided to pick a couple of kits and try that route. I got a finer wines Sauvignon Blanc and a WE reserve California Cabernet Sauvignon.
Reading through the finer wine instructions, they seem to line up a bit more with what I learned the first time around. The WE instructions however seem to be abbreviated and/or for beginners. However a lot of people say that these kits are very good made as is.
For example, the finer wine kit included a yeast starter pack which presumably had sugar and nutrients and when I pitched that starter it was rocking. In the beer world, I always make starters, even with dry yeast. The WE calls for just sprinkling a single packet. Again I know it will work, it's just not what I would consider best practice.
Next thing that I'm currently debating is it doesn't call for any nitrogen after the first 24 hours of fermentation (the finer wine kit did)... Should I abide when my gut tells me the yeast are going to be starved of nitrogen?
So I guess my question is should I use the same processes I used with the group buy juice for these kits or just trust the kit instructions?
The group buy for the Chilean juice didn't happen this year so I decided to pick a couple of kits and try that route. I got a finer wines Sauvignon Blanc and a WE reserve California Cabernet Sauvignon.
Reading through the finer wine instructions, they seem to line up a bit more with what I learned the first time around. The WE instructions however seem to be abbreviated and/or for beginners. However a lot of people say that these kits are very good made as is.
For example, the finer wine kit included a yeast starter pack which presumably had sugar and nutrients and when I pitched that starter it was rocking. In the beer world, I always make starters, even with dry yeast. The WE calls for just sprinkling a single packet. Again I know it will work, it's just not what I would consider best practice.
Next thing that I'm currently debating is it doesn't call for any nitrogen after the first 24 hours of fermentation (the finer wine kit did)... Should I abide when my gut tells me the yeast are going to be starved of nitrogen?
So I guess my question is should I use the same processes I used with the group buy juice for these kits or just trust the kit instructions?