Searching for knowledge

Hello all,
I've never made wine before and am wondering what u experienced wine makers would recommend, as far as reading, to learn how to make wine. What is the best book out there that will show the use of kits but focus more on putting together the wine without the use of a kit. I've been brewing for a few years now and have never used a beer kit or extract, all-grain from the beginning and I would like to the same approach with wine. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Search this forum for "book", you should find some.

Take a look at jack keller's website.

Thanks, I'll check it out.

I have just started making wine also. I picked up The Joy of Home Winemaking by Terry Garey at a local homebrew shop. It has three sections: Begining, Intermediate, and Advanced. It starts you off making a gallon out of grape juice with just a few pieces of equipment and then expands into fruit wines. I thought it was pretty good for getting started quickly as well as learning as I go.

i would agree, best thing to do is to get a concentrate recipe and just learn the basics, its cheap so if you mess it up it only costs you 20 or 30 bucks oppose to a kit and those can be over 100 dollars!

Thanks for the replies. I'll grab that book, looks like what I need. Ya, concentrate sounds like the way to go as far as learning. I'd rather not be learning with $100 and up kits.

I went on ebay and bought a couple of old wine making books, cheap. Successful Wine Making at Home, by H.E. Bravery cost about $5 (shipping included, which is always important), Winemaking at Home which has everything from your standard grape wine to potato wine, and and my old family standard...gallon of juice, no more than 3-5 cups of sugar, yeast and time. And balloons, can't forget the balloons!!! Jack Keller's website is great for recipes and how to's, as is this forum!!!

Jdaught said:

Thanks for the replies. I'll grab that book, looks like what I need. Ya, concentrate sounds like the way to go as far as learning. I'd rather not be learning with $100 and up kits.

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If you follow the directions...AND DON'T ALTER ANYTHING...you will have a very good wine for that $100.

Learn different techniques after you have a feel for what happens when you alter stuff.

yes but if something does go wrong he could end up with very crappy $100 wine, If your good at following directions then go for it, if not I wouldnt gamble with that kind of money but thats just me. the biggest thing is sanitation, if you end up with a bacterial infection your $100 dollar wine kit you wont be happy and dont say we didnt tell you so...cheers

I am fairly new as well, and have a wonderful
Merlot in my basement that has been sitting there for a while waiting to be filtered and bottled. My problem is that I love it so much and I just went and syphoned myself a bottle and I know I shouldn't be doing that because of the air/oxidation risk. I can't get my hands on a filter until next week. Is my wine going to be okay? Should I crush up some campden tablets or top it off? This wine is from a kit and strongly recommends not topping off to ensure a properly balanced wine. Or should I just bottle it without filtering? ( I don't really want to do that)

I want to sneak another one! Must be cleared by now it's a kit and has been almost two months in cooler temps filter shmilter

dmcl700 said:

I want to sneak another one! Must be cleared by now it's a kit and has been almost two months in cooler temps filter shmilter

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I never filter my wines. As long as it's clear, you can bottle.

Thanks

Honda88 said:

yes but if something does go wrong he could end up with very crappy $100 wine, If your good at following directions then go for it, if not I wouldnt gamble with that kind of money but thats just me. the biggest thing is sanitation, if you end up with a bacterial infection your $100 dollar wine kit you wont be happy and dont say we didnt tell you so...cheers

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The directions are 6th grade level. Isn'that hard to get good results. Heck, we read posts all the time with suspect sanitation and rarely find a bad or infected wine. The juice is sterile and as long as you don't stir it with a smelly gym sock, it seems to work out fine.

I love Pambiachi's (sp?) book, Techniques of home winemaking. It's a compilation of all the articles he wrote for wine making magazines.

I have a question if anyone can help, a couple weeks ago I made some crabapple wine using apples in my yard. I didn't get a ton of juice from them but added sugar, water, acid blend, pectic enzyme, tannin, a campden, and yeast. The s.g. Was about 1.080 and it was fermenting but now it has stopped and the s.g. Is now around 1.030 and not going anywhere. It tastes like juice and is very foggy What's going on?

The campden tablet is interfering with the yeast. Its job is to create an environment where yeast are inhibited. Best to use them AFTER fermentation to stabilize a wine.

WilliamSlayer said:

The campden tablet is interfering with the yeast. Its job is to create an environment where yeast are inhibited. Best to use them AFTER fermentation to stabilize a wine.

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Make sure you also sorbate or similar when stabilizing. Campden alone will not do the trick.

Ok all of that makes sense. Is it salvageable at this point? Can I do anything for it?

Pitch more yeast and wait...