Thinking about upping my production.

[cajunlte]

Seriously thinking about upping to 3 to 4 wines going at one time to meet the demands of my wife and I. How many do most of you brew at one time with a household of 2?

 

[vacuumpumpman]

Seriously thinking about upping to 3 to 4 wines going at one time to meet the demands of my wife and I. How many do most of you brew at one time with a household of 2?

Thats a tough question -
Are these kits - I assume ?
How much wine do you typically drink
are you looking to age and for how long ?

Typically we are around 150 gallons per year -

 

[sour_grapes]

I am trying to do one kit a month, or 72 gallons/year, or 360 bottle/year. This should allow me to build up enough stock to age, and then supply our ~4 bottles/week habit. I have four carboys.

 

[calvin]

I also have four carboys. I keep one empty for rackings. For the first time in my short winemaking history they are all empty. I just bottled 18 gallons. Time to get to work. I started a 1 gallon batch yesterday and will be getting a 12 gallon batch of skeeter pee going soon. I don't like empty carboys

 

[seth8530]

I have close to 20 carboys right now and it looks like I do somewhere between 30-75 gallons a year depending on whether I stick to just wine from grapes and fresh juice or if I venture into side projects such as beer and cider.. 39 gallon cider project really brings up the yearly quota. However, for the most part, most of my carboys are tied up bulk aging my long term projects such as pinot noir, chardonnay, my bubbly blend as well as various meads.

So, I say around 30 gallons a year in wine, and maybe 30-40 gallons a year in bear and cider.

 

[richmke]

At 1 bottle per week, that is 52 bottles per year, or roughly 2 kits per year. If you drink/give away an average of 2 bottles per week, that would be 100 bottles per year, or roughly 3 kits per year.

The next level of complexity is how long you age your wine. If you do early drinkers like Island Mist, then you can do 6 kits a year with no overlap (2 months per IM kit). If you drink big reds and age them for 1 year in a carboy, then you will need to make all the kits simultaneously.

Finally, if you make big reds, then you need to build supply in order to give them time to age in the bottle for a year.

Note: As you make more wine, you may find yourself drinking more wine. When you have a lot of bottles sitting around, it is a lot easier to grab one.

 

[ffemt128]

I currently have somewhere around 180 gallons on carboys in the cellar now. About 30 gallons of that is someone else's. We generally do about 150-175 gallons per year. I've given away more than I can count with 3 adult children and friends...

 

[Putterrr]

the bulk aging is what takes up space and carboys. I bottle a red each month at 8 months of age. So i always have 8 reds on the go. I bottle whites every 3 months at 6 months of age so 2 whites on the go. If my math is correct we bottle 60 gal (imp) of red and 20 white. Of course we aren't consuming 80 gals but this is allowing me to build up my aged wine supply. I can see a slowing of my red production in another year once I have a good supply of mature bottles. (or at least that is what I tell SWMBO)

cheers

 

[REDBOATNY]

I have 14 carboys going now. Some is a joint effort with a friend.

 

[DoctorCAD]

I have 3 kits going right now. I try to keep them at least a month apart so I am not overwhelmed by too much work at any one time. That also gives me time to replenish my empty bottle stock.

Next weekend is bottling day for my Pinot Noir and I will get another kit going after Christmas. It will be a "mist" kit for summer pool drinking!

 

[JohnT]

The problem, I see, is that no-one has ever thought of marketing a large quality kit (say 50 to 100 liters). I have to admit that I have not really researched this, but I have not come across them either.

Having variety is all well and good, but I assume that the issue you have here is simply volume. Why not look into making wine from fresh grapes next year? You can make big batches when using fresh fruit.

Here is an article I found..

https://winemakermag.com/90-big-kits-wine-kits

 

[olusteebus]

My plan at this time for next year is somewhere near 85 gallons. I hope to age maybe half of it for one year and hopefully the other half will be fairly early drinkers. I just got an idea from this thread to start some breezing type kits which will be early drinkers. I will either add or substitute.

Next year, I hope to primarily drink what I make with more limited commercial wine.

In my short career, I have never planned. I think planning will be much better. Of course, I will be flexible and may throw in a few surprises as long as it does not interfere with my plan.

 

[sour_grapes]

The problem, I see, is that no-one has ever thought of marketing a large quality kit (say 50 to 100 liters). I have to admit that I have not really researched this, but I have not come across them either.

But what advantage would that pose over just buying 2, 3, or 4 kits? A 100 L kit (containing, perhaps 70 L of concentrate) would weigh about 175 lbs! Perhaps we could get @wineforfun to make the deliveries for us!

 

[JohnT]

But what advantage would that pose over just buying 2, 3, or 4 kits? A 100 L kit (containing, perhaps 70 L of concentrate) would weigh about 175 lbs! Perhaps we could get @wineforfun to make the deliveries for us!

My thinking is that a single large kit would be easier, cheaper, and more efficient than 4 separate kits? Perhaps?

Just wondering why there are no large kits on the market......

 

[sour_grapes]

By the way, I had worked out some math on how many bottles one needs to have in one's cellar to support one's drinking habit, given some reasonable assumptions about aging. Here is a description from an earlier post:

I have just been working out the math of how many bottles one needs to have on hand to meet one's ongoing needs. (I was trying to figure out how many wine racks to build!)

Here are my assumptions: I wish to make a kit, let it age a certain time, and then consume the bottles at a constant rate over a few years (its shelf life). The variables are:

R bottles consumed/yr
A initial aging time (yrs)
S shelf life after aging (yrs)

I claim you need approximately R*(A + S/2) bottles.

For example, I hope to initially age my wines for 1.5 yrs (A=1.5 yr), and then to keep some of them on the shelf for up to 4 yrs (S=4 yr). To support my roughly 4 bottles a week habit (R=208 bottles/yr), therefore, I should plan on having room to store R*(A + S/2) = 208 b/yr*(1.5yr + 4 yr/2) = 208*3.5 = 728 bottles.

In steady state, you will be adding R bottles to this pile each year, and consuming the same number.

If you are interested in where the S/2 comes from, it stems from the fact that your drinkable bottles have been on the shelf, waiting to be drunk, an average of S/2 yrs. (Many have been on the shelf for 0 yrs, fewer of them 1 yr, fewer yet for 2 yrs, etc.) I did not see that at first, and found a (slightly more accurate) result by summing a mathematical series. After finding the result, it's origin was suddenly obvious.

And here are a couple of related threads that I found interesting:
http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/f5/building-supply-45750/

http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/f5/what-your-inventory-level-40585/

 

[seth8530]

Nice one lol. I could imagine how you could wright a deferential equation to do the same thing.

 

[JohnT]

It just occurred to me that you two do not drink enough. You obviously still have too many brain cells!

 

[terroirdejeroir]

I have done one kit per month over the last couple of years, plus seasonal fruit wines. In spite of getting lots of drinking help from my adult children I still have managed to accumulate a cellar of about 300 bottles.

This year I made a change to focus on grapes/pails and it has been a bit challenging. I should end up with about 43 gallons from that project.

 

[Thig]

I never have more than 2 in the primary fermentation stage at one time, but I have as many as 10 or 12 in carboys at various ages.

 

[wineforfun]

But what advantage would that pose over just buying 2, 3, or 4 kits? A 100 L kit (containing, perhaps 70 L of concentrate) would weigh about 175 lbs! Perhaps we could get @wineforfun to make the deliveries for us!

haha
I'm in..............as long as I could do some "sampling".