WineXpert First time wine brewing

[Fort Robert Brewing]

My first time brewing and I chose Italian Dolcetto Wine Kit - Winexpert Reserve Limited Release. It is an 8 week dry young drinking red. It was on sale from a brewing supplier up north. The kit should arrive late this week. What kind of things, perhaps not so obvious, should I inspect to insure a good quality start? Do these kind of kits have expiration dates? Is the yeast they choose the one I would choose (if I had any idea what would be better or best )? What is the forum’s opinion of Winexpert products? Feel free to riff.

 

[BernardSmith]

In my limited experience with wine kits they tend to include a champagne yeast mainly because such yeasts will ferment under really poor conditions (temperature for example) but champagne yeasts are the equivalent of using a sledge hammer to crack a walnut. It will certainly get the job done, but the walnut won't always be in one piece, if you get my drift.

If you can I would always purchase separately a yeast I like to use for the kind of wine in the kit. By that I mean, if the kit is for a red wine, what red wine yeasts do you like? If for a white wine, what white wine yeast? Is this a wine that will have a fairly high ABV? What yeast do you use for such wines? How hot is your wine room? What yeast do you use when the temperature of the room is as it will be when you pitch the yeast? If you don't have preferences then check out the spec sheets published by the labs for their yeasts. The spec sheets will give you a good idea of the kinds of conditions their different yeasts prefer and the kinds of fruits and grapes that the lab suggests are well suited for each strain of yeast.

 

[Fort Robert Brewing]

Yup. I can do that with beer yeasts off the top of my head. I have a reference book with details of several wine yeast companies’ offerings. I shall peruse and feel free to use my knowledge of yeasties’ behaviors now knowing that the kit company is trying to cover my rookie behind. That is logical. I will reply with an case for my choice. Thanks!

 

[Jim Welch]

I like BM45, Bm4x4, and RC212 for red wines. I've been using the EC118, which is probably what's include, once it drops to about 1.010 to help drive the wine bone dry.

 

[Gilmango]

Well since you asked here at WMT, besides changing the yeast, the other big things folks seem to do to try to make wines from kits better also include bulk aging (basically not planning to bottle in 8 weeks, more like 6-12 months for a red, allowing the wine to de-gas more naturally while you potentially tweak it with oak or tannin additions based on how it tastes, and otherwise just let time do its work), possible extended maceration if the kit includes grape skins, possibly skipping some or all of the fining agents (works best if you are on board with the long bulk aging), skipping the sorbate unless you planned to back sweeten which you almost never would on a dry red like Dolcetto; also adding oak, tannins, fruit packs, aging in barrels, etc. While the kit you are doing is probably not a "cheap" one the 'tweaking cheap wine kits' thread is full of ideas.

Basically, I was in your shoes late last year, experienced home beer brewer, thought I would do a quick red wine kit just to see how good or bad it could be -- would it measure up to the $10-20 bottles I usually drank for less $? Figured I'd be drinking that first kit by now (RJS Nebbiolo), but no, found this site and am now still bulk aging that very first kit with 4 more kit wines behind it. Doesn't help that the first wine is just a tad sweeter than I'd like - even though gravity got down to 0.992, so I'm trying to do what I can to get it more to my taste.

But honestly, maybe just follow the instructions on the first kit, bottle it in 8 weeks and see if wine making is for you. If it is then dive deep into all the knowledge on this site and elsewhere. But if that first wine is not so great maybe quit while you are ahead? Or try a grape bucket or a Finer Wines kit (the latter are one of the only un-pasteurized kits).

 

[Fort Robert Brewing]

But honestly, maybe just follow the instructions on the first kit, bottle it in 8 weeks and see if wine making is for you.

I think I will make only the yeast alteration as I think I would get a more complex result than the "cover all bases" kit yeast.
I

I've been using the EC118, which is probably what's include, once it drops to about 1.010 to help drive the wine bone dry.

Jim, are you saying use a chosen yeast (Wyeast 4028 Chateau Red looks like a good match) and when it gets down to 1.010 pitch the EC118? I believe that's what I am hearing but wanted to make sure. Sounds like a good plan.

 

[Jim Welch]

yes, when it gets around 1.010 or so, maybe even at 1.020. My reds tend to ferment so fast I'll start my yeast pitching process as it gets close to 1.020. I try to get my reds to mid 13-14% alcohol and that gets close to the yeasts' I mentioned alcohol tolerance. I want my reds to go as dry as I can make them and the EC1118 is good to 18% IIRC.

 

[Fort Robert Brewing]

Very good. In beer making, flavors are made more complex by fermenting nearer to their lower range number. The Wyeast 4244 low number is 50 F. My brewery temp is a steady 66F in the summer and fall. Would I gain flavor by temp control to the mid -upper 50’s?

 

[BernardSmith]

Very good. In beer making, flavors are made more complex by fermenting nearer to their lower range number. The Wyeast 4244 low number is 50 F. My brewery temp is a steady 66F in the summer and fall. Would I gain flavor by temp control to the mid -upper 50’s?

Not sure that in wine making you achieve more complex flavors when you ferment at the lower end of the yeast's temperature preference range. What you tend to get is a fermentation with less stressed yeast and so with the flavors that highlight the fruits and not the stresses experienced by the yeast. Beer is barley and barley is barely so you struggle to get the most complex flavors from the barley , but grape wine in particular, country wines and mead contain an enormous amount of complex flavor molecules. What you want is that those molecules shine and are not buried by the fusels and other stress notes produced by the yeast.
That said, Groennfell Meadery in Vermont often ferments at higher than optimal temperatures to produce phenols in their meads when they use wildflower or clover honey to add to the complexity of what they consider to be potentially a likely more bland mead than one that was based on an exciting varietal honey.

 

[Fort Robert Brewing]

I can see that. I think we are saying similar things. You from close up and me from a high view. Thanks for that explanation. I got my kits in the mail today. They went to cold storage until I have received a couple more tools peculiar to winemaking. I received an acid test kit. Can I assume a WineXpert kit to have balanced sugar and acid counts? Perhaps even if so, I will attempt to become proficient at checking, likely to see they are balanced.

 

[winemaker81]

Can I assume a WineXpert kit to have balanced sugar and acid counts?

Kits are formulated so that all consumables are in the kit -- you need hardware and bottles. You can check TA and pH for practice, but they should be fine.

In the past some kits were deficient in sugar, but in recent years all have been good. However, it's a good habit to check SG before starting, and each time you touch it.

 

[Jim Welch]

I pretty much exclusively use the yeasts I listed in post #4 to do the heavy lifting in all my red wines and I prefer to ferment them at or near their respective max temps until they approach 1.00 SG.
White wines I ferment at the low end of the respective yeast range but I've only made two white wine kits so far. Used QA23 IIRC I put them in my temp controlled beer ferm chamber I made to keep them cool. They turned out dry and fruity.
Red wine fermenatations are similar to belgian beers IMO, higher temps (but not too high) help the flavor in my experience. Doesn't mean everyone has to let them ferment on the high end but I do with red wines as I do with belgian beers.

 

[Fort Robert Brewing]

OK. Let’s talk about water. I have soft 8.5 PH Tap water. I have used salts to mimic Burton on Trent water for my bitters. Is water a thing making wine? I would think think making water into wine would be a thing! For beer, I boil with Camden, cool and then heat. How much will water have to do with the final ( 1 year) wine? Told ya’ I had questions.

 

[Gilmango]

OK. Let’s talk about water. I have soft 8.5 PH Tap water. I have used salts to mimic Burton on Trent water for my bitters. Is water a thing making wine? I would think think making water into wine would be a thing! For beer, I boil with Camden, cool and then heat. How much will water have to do with the final ( 1 year) wine? Told ya’ I had questions.

Most kits just say 'add water' but totally agree that it makes a difference. I think some kits assume you have a very neutral water so the water salts and acid adjustments are in the wine juice/concentrate, in which case you just want to add a water which tastes good and doesn't have too much of anything nasty. The Finer Wine kits which are super concentrated - 6 liters so you add 17 liters / 4.5 gallons of water do advise to use distilled water (they also make mention of reverse osmosis or spring water in their videos, if memory serves).

So basically doing the whole boiling with a campden tablet (or portion thereof since a little goes a long way) and chilling makes perfect sense. Not sure I'd do too much about the alkaline water you have at 8.5PH - if I did I'd just move the 8.5 to a neutral 7.0 PH and trust that the kit had enough acid added to move it the rest of the way there.

For me it also varies by amount of water in the kit. For an 18 liter kit I might just filter 5 liters of water in a Brita or better do the Campden and cool (my tap water tastes great the issue is chlorasamines), but for the 6 liter Finer Wine kit I did go all out and bought 5 gallons of spring water and added 4.5 g.

 

[sour_grapes]

+1 on not worrying about pH of 8.5. Due to the fact that pH is logarithmic, the difference between 7.0 and 8.5 for adding to something of pH of ~3 is completely negligible.

 

[Sailor323]

Very good. In beer making, flavors are made more complex by fermenting nearer to their lower range number. The Wyeast 4244 low number is 50 F. My brewery temp is a steady 66F in the summer and fall. Would I gain flavor by temp control to the mid -upper 50’s?

Typically white wines are fermented at lower temps than reds and for longer periods of time. Not having the means to regulate temperature, I just go with ambient in my cellar

 

[Fort Robert Brewing]

Right then. The ferment is on. Put the kit’s Bentonite in 2L water on the stirring plate until mixed. Into the fermenter with the grape kit. Added boiled and cooled water to 23 L. Added oak chips. Cooled to 68. OG 1.090. Added Wyeast 4028. I have a Tuscan kit next and will use 4244 next time. After I ordered the 4028 I realized it is a French strain. It will be fine for a first batch. I like working one yeast in beer and will again in wine, exploring the scope of the yeast potential. 3 hours later and the yeast are active. Now I will look away until 1.020 and add the the kit yeast ( Thank you Jim. It makes perfect sense). I will wrestle with malts for two weeks while thinking, “I like this wine thing”.