Wanting to jump into grapes from juice and kits

[Bergie]

I am wanting to try my hand at making wine from grapes as opposed to kits or juice. What is the best way to start? What do I need for equipment and what type of expense am I looking at?

 

[Wade E]

You will need access to a crusher/ destemmer and a grape press and you really should test acid and Ph levels. You will also need bigger fermenters or at least a few primary buckets.

 

[Bartman]

It depends to some degree on the volume of grapes you plan on fermenting at a time. If you want to make the equivalent 6 to 12 gallons of wine from grapes as from 1 or 2 kits each harvest season (that is, California in October and Chile in May), then you probably would do best to rent the equipment Wade referred to than to buy your own. The crusher/destemmer can easily run $400-500 new, and the press can be $350 or more for the smallest volume. By contrast, I rent Fine Vine Wines' equipment in Dallas for about $25 (where I pick up the grapes), get to use some of the best equipment available, and don't have to store or maintain the equipment for the other 363 days of the year.

Once you get past pressing the grapes, then the equipment needs are no different than a kit's requirements. Like Wade said, you'll probably want to get into testing and adjustment of the acids, sugars, pH, etc. I have used old Mosti Alljuice buckets for the grapes (the volume with all the grape skins is much greater at first than with kits) - for 3 lugs, which make a total of 6 gallons of wine when finished, I used two 7.9-gallon buckets with the buckets each about 2/3 full; so 6 lugs required 4 7.9-gallon buckets. If you want to do more than 12 gallons at a time, you'll probably want to get bigger fermenting buckets, and transport starts to become an issue to, unless you live very close to wherever the grapes are delivered.

 

[Rocky]

Bergie, what kind of operation do you envision? How many gallons of wine do you want to make? Red or white wine? Do you live near a source for grapes? What kind of "production area" do you have available to you? How much do you know about testing for TA, pH, SO2, etc.

I have made wine both from grapes and from kits/juice and there are plus sides and minus sides to both. Good advice above by Bartman and Wade...rent or borrow the crusher and press, at least to start.

 

[Turock]

Some wine supply shops will even rent crushers. But you have to be sure to get a reservation set up to use it well ahead of when you need it. If you join a local wine club, they often have crushers and presses you can use.

A crusher is far more necessary and you can get by without a press if money is limited. When we went to buy our crusher, many years ago, it was only available by about August and if you didn't have an order in for one, you couldn't get one unless there was a model on the floor. So you might want to check availability.

Where do you live? If you can pick your own, it will cut down on cost. I'd buy a PH meter, and a brute container for fermenting.

 

[thegypsy]

I am wanting to try my hand at making wine from grapes as opposed to kits or juice. What is the best way to start? What do I need for equipment and what type of expense am I looking at?

The equipment needed will depend on where you're living, let me explain.
From reading the posts it is obvious that you can rent in some parts of the country.
Here in Montreal, Quebec, some grape wholesale operators can and will (for a small fee) crush into buckets for you or go a step further and press it for you too. So that in the end you can take home only the juice.

 

[Wade E]

You also can make a cheap press with two buckets, one of which will need a bunch oh holes drilled in it that fits into the lower bucket.

 

[JohnT]

See thread "Improving my Wine" in the general winemaking forum.