Wine Makery

[justanotherfan]

I have never heard of people making their own wine, I am wondering if either nobody does that anywhere I've been, or I have simply never noticed it. Is it a common practice in Canada? What got you started on this track?

I know it's popular in the Canadian prairies and West. I think the main motivation is that it's much cheaper than retail. Thinking about it now, the reason for that would be taxes. Canadian taxation on alcohol is a nice earner for the government. There's Goods and Services Tax on glass bottles (and recycling deposits, increasing, 20c now?), but no GST on grape juice since that's a food. Wikipedia says "Canada has some of the highest rates of taxes on cigarettes and alcohol in the world. These are sometimes referred to as sin taxes.", which is interesting, though I hadn't heard the sin tax phrase. If I exclude the initial cost of equipment (which lasts until broken), a wine kit costs about the same as a box of inexpensive wine (~45$). The box of wine is usually 4l (~1 gallon, or just over 5 x 750ml bottles), but the kit makes 23 liters (6 gallons). With one kit and the basic equipment, you can make a kit per month, and drink 30 bottles per month (rough math). It's a bit to learn how, but it's not hard, and could be done after drinking a bottle of wine if you're strong enough to lift the bottles/carboys while drunk.

The day after those photos above, the foam became totally opaque, like bubbly mud. Now it's at this fizzy soap-suds type foam.

Autosyphon, pipette, hygrometer, thermometer, and graduated cylinder included in poor-quality photo. Still a little yeast-mud on the sides of the pot from where it was. Dollar store glassware makes it look so much more professionist sciencific. Not sure what I'll use the beakers for, so they may be sadly temporary, meeep meep?

[Trestkon]

I have never heard of people making their own wine, I am wondering if either nobody does that anywhere I've been, or I have simply never noticed it. Is it a common practice in Canada? What got you started on this track?

As jaf said, it's mostly cheapness. 2-3 dollars a bottle definitely beats 10-15, assuming you can get it to come out to a decent quality

Not sure what I'll use the beakers for, so they may be sadly temporary, meeep meep?

Hehe :p So, I just reached the degassing stage last night. Turns out you shouldn't try to accomplish degassing in one evening! It seems like it's going to take a rather lot of vigorous stirring to get it even close to degassed. I searched around for some easier methods and the one that struck my eye was rigging up one of those wine saver pumps onto the top of the carboy and just pumping out the co2. I might try that next time, but for now I'll just stir this thing madly throughout the day and call it good at the end of today. I've read that it's not a *huge* issue anyway, mostly a matter of taste. It might cause problems if you keep the wine bottled for long periods, or if you're fussy about a little bit of foam...which I probably am :p

[Jane_Denton]

I have never heard of people making their own wine, I am wondering if either nobody does that anywhere I've been, or I have simply never noticed it. Is it a common practice in Canada? What got you started on this track?

It's actually very popular here in the maratimes also... we have a fairly large celtic population! There's quite a few shine makers here also... the clear stuff... and the pink stuff...

[Trestkon]

Degassing: http://twitpic.com/9648h

[justanotherfan]

So, I just reached the degassing stage last night. Turns out you shouldn't try to accomplish degassing in one evening! It seems like it's going to take a rather lot of vigorous stirring to get it even close to degassed. I searched around for some easier methods and the one that struck my eye was rigging up one of those wine saver pumps onto the top of the carboy and just pumping out the co2.

I have a WineSaver that I got from a closeout store. Does what it says it does mechanically, not sure if it works better than a normal wine plug. But it would fit into the carboy. I guess I could use it to create a vacuum in the wine bottle after bottling the wine too...

The wine stores around here have this weird tool for degassing. It's a drill bit with floppy things on the side. Supposedly that stirs effectively, and it fits into the carboy-
http://davesplacegfw.ca/images/fizz-x.JPG

What I was thinking was one of these in the primary fermenter-
http://www.zircarceramics.com/pages/mol ... ment/m.jpg

My wine is still fizzy. Smells like champagne, tastes like Baby Duck.

[Trestkon]

Our wine stores have those things you attach to a drill, too, although I was too cheap to buy one.

I just went out and bought a wine saver pump thingy. I actually didn't need to modify it at all, I just stuck the normal bung on the carboy, positioned one of the caps over the whole, and started pumping. It works nicely, except that it's totally ineffective with a plastic carboy as the sides just get sucked in, resulting in very little actual vacuum I'll probably get a glass carboy for next time, but for now I've decided it's good enough and added the final chemicals. It has to sit for 4-6 more days and then it's time for bottling!

[justanotherfan]

Plastic is definitely good enough. It's far less fragile than glass, far lighter, and it can be clear as well. They really should make bespoke plastic lids for winemaking that can act as an airlock. My stuff about chemicals is just me being peculiar, or obstinate. If you like glass, there's a lot of garage sales selling them for cheap -- people cleaning out the basement. Glass is inert (here I go again), so non-cracked glass can be cleaned to be exactly as good as new. Now that I know the foam doesn't get too high, I probably could have gone with primary fermentation in a glass carboy bottle, but I like the open pot.

Congratulations on being ready to bottle. I should be siphoning the wine to the carboy in the next couple days.

[justanotherfan]

Was just about to bottle the white wine, and tasted it. It tastes acrid and sour. Hopefully it's supposed to taste terrible at the end of primary fermentation.

[Trestkon]

Hmm, I don't think it's supposed to taste bad. Although I admit I have yet to actually taste mine, I'm just waiting until I bottle it as it's not like I could do anything to correct it, anyway.

I should be bottling this Sunday if everything goes according to plan and I have enough time. I've gathered a good amount of bottles and bought some synthetic corks as well as shrink wraps. I also have a coupon for a free filter pump rental \o/

[justanotherfan]

I transferred it to the carboy. It's funny, it's a dark brown colour. I asked my mum if she'd ever seen a brown white wine, and she said "I saw that and didn't want to say anything...". In a glass, the wine is sort of a creamy yellow like an unfiltered wheat beer.

I think the bad taste was it needing to de-gas. I left some out of the container for a day, and it still has a sharp acid taste, but it's drinkable again. Since I'm not a fan of white wine (acidic with little flavour), I can say with honesty that to me this tastes like an unoaked chardonnay. I just tried some from the carboy, and the gassiness is gone and it tastes approximately good. I added two drops of oak distillate, and it really rounds off the sharper flavours. It may have oxidized a little (the colour), but it tastes like white wine. Surprisingly, it's actually fairly dry already, which is where I wanted to take this liebfraumilch.

Also, I just read in a brewing store pamphlet that "you know what goes into your product. Breweries and wineries have over fifty chemicals to choose from and use, for things like clarity, head retention, flavour, colouring, aroma, and preservation". I've decided to use Oak distillate (ooh, wood water) and in half the bottles the potassium sorbate as a preservative, and nothing else.

How did bottling go? How'd the synthetic corks work out? How's it taste?

[Trestkon]

I've actually made zero progress on the bottling. I ended up not being able to rent the filter pump I wanted as I was away on Saturday and the store was closed on Sunday. I've decided I'm not in a rush, though, I don't want to try and jam bottle washing and bottling into one evening and have a terrible time of it. The wine is only going to get better sitting in the carboy anyway, so I'm just going to wait until I have an entire free day...which is rare :p

How are you planning on degassing your wine?

[metche]

Very impressive folks!

Seriously tho' gimme a bottle of non-alcholic fizzy grape juice and I'm anybodys!

[Trestkon]

Very impressive folks!

Seriously tho' gimme a bottle of non-alcholic fizzy grape juice and I'm anybodys!

That stuff IS rather good.

I'm still slacking on bottling my wine, I really think I need most of a whole day to do it and have yet to find the time. Not that it's a big deal, it's just aging to perfection \o/

[justanotherfan]

Me too. I'm away from the wine, so I can't do much for it. I forget how long the second fermentation is supposed to be. At least it'll be dry. It'll be great to finish this kit, so I can go out and pick up a kit I'd like. Maybe I'll try a wheat beer with no coriander....I saw some great recipes for sake (rice beer/wine).

[bobby 55]

Sorry to butt in guys.I hope your wine making is a success. Justanotherfan mentioned the possibility of making sake.That might be worth trying as i had a couple of warm cups of sake at a friend's party recently and it wasn't bad.It also mellows you out at a decent rate:D