Wine vs Beer

Is it easier to make wine than beer? I would like to give winemaking a try, but I'd want to keep it simple. Is there a simple way of making a wine with around 13% alcohol that will age well?

It depends. A wine kit is easier than a beer extract kit.

When dealing with the raw ingredients, I would say brewing an All Grain batch of beer is easier than starting with a bushel of grapes.

Give my Apfelwein a try. It's dry, crisp & refreshing.

EdWort said:

Give my Apfelwein a try. It's dry, crisp & refreshing.

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... and literally could not be any easier to put together.

Is it supposed to age well? I also want to make wine that is at about the strength I am used to.

I don't think the Apfelwein will work for me as I don't have a kegging system. I was thinking more along the lines of regular red wine.

Give a Vintner's Reserve Kit a try. They are very straight forward, easy to do and don't require much more than a bucket and a carboy and patience.

I've never made a "regular" red wine so I"m no expert. But I make country wines out of just about anything except grass clippings. If I wanted to do a red wine, I would buy a kit that costs about $75. They are quite good, and have complete instructions and ingredients. They are easy to put together using the equipment you have. They usually make 6 gallons of mid quality wine.

I'd look at any online homebrew website and find one that you like and give it a try. As a rule, wine tends to be easier and less labor intensive. It is more forgiving than beer and unless oxygen or bacteria get into it, it's almost impossible to screw up.

If you want to make country wines, jackkeller.net has some great information.

Go for the better quality wine kits - they have more grape juice, require no sugar to be added and only need to be topped up minimal water. Much better tasting than the cheaper versions. They cost more but are worth it.

I just finished a Selections wine kit. They're designed to make 6 gallons - 30 750ml bottles. It turned out REALLY good and couldn't be any easier. I'd try to buy a kit locally - shipping is a tad expensive.

I find the whole line of Wine Experts kits to be very good. Some key elements are patience and understanding. The patience comes in with aging the wine; it will be drinkable at bottling time but really starts getting great about a year later. The under standing comes in with what kit to buy; the 50 to 75 dollar kits are like a 8 to 10 dollar a bottle wine at bottling and a 18 to 30 dollar bottle wine a one year and older. The 100 to 160 Dollar kits are much better some as good as an $80 a bottle wine at the year mark.

I made a wineXperts kit this past winter and it was extremely simple. Just followed the instructions and it turned out great.
I've got a feeling that if you want to make very good wine from grapes it is much more difficult than beer. I've done some reading and it seems pretty difficult to me.

I like doing both because wine takes months to years before it's ready. I can brew lots of beer between wine batches and consume them within 5 or 6 weeks.

The wine kits are great. I have made wine with an "old school" Italian friend of mine straight from grapes (Barbera and Zinfandel) The wine was ok, but no better than the kit was. I also do not think it was worth the additional work. The cost was not any better for all the extra work, as grapes are a bit more than 22.00 a case.

One thing I am wondering is anyone using the kits from Winexpert. Has anyone attempted to boost the ABV?

I just put a WinExpert Vintner's Reserve kit into primary this past Sunday. It's a Pinot Blanc. It was very simple, but the directions (and everything else I've read) warn not to try to make the wine any stronger (dilute as directed) -- not sure if you could adjunct it with sugar/dextrose, good question.

I think the WE kits (and other wine kits) have an ABV of around 13%. Any less and you risk infection, any more and you'd be making rocket fuel that would take forever to age out. Anything more than 14% would be way too "hot" for a couple of years. I wouldn't mess with a kit just to boost ABV.

Hmmm...Didn't realize it was that high....Just thought it might be fun to stray a little and personalize it a bit