Kegging Wine

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Craig311

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 25, 2007
Messages
347
Reaction score
6
My neighbor is making some pretty good red wine. He doesn't brew beer and has no kegging setup, etc. He was looking at my keezer and said it would be cool to have his wine on tap. that got me thinking... What would be the recommended approach in getting red wine on tap? Is there a "standard" approach?

Obviously you don't want it cold or carbonated. So, I'm thinking he could use a corny, keep it above the tap, and just gravity feed. Or maybe keep it on co2 and only keep enough pressure on to push the wine.

Then I started thinking about what it would take to put wine on tap using my keezer. I could just split the gas off if needed to push. Would a perlick 525 be ok to use? Or would I need something else?

That aside, it seems like it would make more sense to keep it separate from the keezer since I wouldn't want it cold. Not sure if I am thinking about this all in the right way. Thoughts?
 
Even just enough pressure to push is going to carbonate the wine slightly. You could unhook and vent the gas every time you finish pouring, but that sounds tedious.

If it were me, I would probably look into some kind of collapsable plastic bladder of some sort, like the kind used in wine-in-a-box.
 
The picobrewery/micro winery/coffee shop/cigar bar I used to hang out at when I lived nearer to them, serves many of their wines out of standard coney kegs, and their wines are not carbonated. I'm not sure what they do, but I don't think it's anything too complicated.

There looks to be several threads on that topic in the similar threads box below, including one titled, considerations when kegging wine. I'd look at those....

You could also try calling the place I'm talking about, Bella Casa di Vino at 810-326-1212, call in the evenings, and ask for Pat. He'd tell you what he does. He's probably there now, in the cigar lounge smoking a stogy.

I'm looking at this pic of one of their taps setup and I know the 4 on the left are beers and the 4 on the right are their regular wines, and IIRc they're all perlicks.

68709_450058204066_7344347_n.jpg
 
Yeah, if using Argon is a possibility, that should work great.

Yep argon works great, and so does nitrogen. You can even buy special caps with diptubes that allow you to serve standard wine bottles through the draft system. Several local restaurants use them.
 
If it were me, I would probably look into some kind of collapsable plastic bladder of some sort, like the kind used in wine-in-a-box.

They sell those. basically it is a plastic box to hold the bag and a plastic bag, which I think is disposed of after each one, and then gravity fed. I think they go about 1.5 gallons. While I was pretty sure I'd seen them in a midwest catalog, I can't find them online.

I'd also be concerned about aging the wine in them, maybe bulk age in the carboy and then fill the box bags shortly before use
 
Kegging wine is actually pretty common these days for wine bars, as Revvy said. I'm talking 1/2 bbl sanke kegs in some instances. Pretty sure they're pushed by CO2 at 1-2 lbs and kept at 'cellar' temps, so the amount of carbonation in solution is negligible, especially when poured into a wine glass with a large amount of surface contact.
 
Kegging wine is actually pretty common these days for wine bars, as Revvy said. I'm talking 1/2 bbl sanke kegs in some instances. Pretty sure they're pushed by CO2 at 1-2 lbs and kept at 'cellar' temps, so the amount of carbonation in solution is negligible, especially when poured into a wine glass with a large amount of surface contact.

They are pushed with either argon or nitrogen, or sometimes beergas, but not pure CO2. Even at low pressures you'd still get a fair amount of carbonation. Real ales are often served at cellar temps with ~0.5 psi, and have about 1vol of carbonation.
 
IIRC there was an article in BYO sometime back regarding this and the trend towards kegging wines. You could contact them as I'm sure they can pinpoint the month/year of the issue and get it out to you. Or, you can do as Revvy suggested and give that place a call.
 
Back
Top