Brewmiser

Recipes 

Okay, so i've been brewing for a while & decided to get my feet wet on making wine. So I bought a World Vineyard California Pinot Noir wine kit. It was suggested by my LHBS to make it a 5.25 gallon batch instead of the 6 to give it more body & flavor. & also I could use 3/4s of the oak too if I didn't like my wine too oaky. I was just wondering if anyone has made this kit OR had any suggestions on improving it.

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Primary: Lambic, Flanders Red,

Secondary: Orange Cinnamon Metheglin, Black Cherry Melomel.

Bottled:Imperial Chocolate Coconut Porter, Pinot Noir, Strong Dark Belgian, Hard Lemonade, Black Hops IPA. Dunkelwiezen, Old Rasputin Clone, 1554 black ale clone, BarleyWine

Keg, Rye IPA, Chocolate Coconut Porter, Apricot ale

Yooper

Recipes 

All of the decent wine kits I've done have been really good just by following the directions. Unless you know for sure the kit will have too low of an OG and be thin, I wouldn't make less. The kits are balanced with the correct amount of acids and sugars, and generally make a very good product. Making 5.25 gallons instead might give you a "thicker" and higher alcohol product that may or may not be good.

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Broken Leg Brewery
Giving beer a leg to stand on since 2006

SteveHoward

Recipes 

I wonder if the instructions you got have anything to do with what type of Pinot the LBHS person is accustomed to vs. what the wine was made for.

I say this because my experience was that the Pinot Noir in CA, and the Pinot Noir I got when working in Paris were so very different. The CA version was much more full bodied than what I got in Paris. When I commented about this, the waiter, and the people I worked with launched into long descriptions . Personally, I liked what I got in Paris much better, but maybe the person in your LHBS prefers the more full bodied style.

DoctorCAD

Recipes 

A good LHBS would NOT tell you to cut a kit wine down. The chemicals and additives are set for 6 gallons, nothing more or less.

A good winemaker might be able to do something with less than 6 gallons, but they would understand the chemistry involved.

Brewmiser

Recipes 

okay, I just assumed that it was more like Beer in that you can tweak a kit to make it the way you like it. So besides Not reducing the volume is there anything else you would suggest I do to the kit? Maybe extra aging? or more degassing? or something like that? I know there are lots of thing people do to make great wines just trying to figure out if there are any extra steps I should take.

Also, I'm I asking for trouble if I use my Beer equipment on my wine for
Primary, Racking, & Bottling?

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Primary: Lambic, Flanders Red,

Secondary: Orange Cinnamon Metheglin, Black Cherry Melomel.

Bottled:Imperial Chocolate Coconut Porter, Pinot Noir, Strong Dark Belgian, Hard Lemonade, Black Hops IPA. Dunkelwiezen, Old Rasputin Clone, 1554 black ale clone, BarleyWine

Keg, Rye IPA, Chocolate Coconut Porter, Apricot ale