how much do they make?

never made or had homemade wine, but since ive been brewing beer my girlfriend has been wanting to try making wine. i might buy her a kit for christmas, but im wondering how much the typical wine ingredient kit makes. ive looked around but havent gotten an answer. im talking about the kits i see on the Austin homebrew supply website that run from 60-100 dollars. do they make 5 gallons like the typical beer kit, or less. the equipment kits come with a 3 gallon carboy but a 7 gallon bucket for fermentation, so do they only make 3 gallons, or 6, or what? im confused...please help me.

I've never seen the specific kits you mention but with a 3 Gallon Carboy it must be a 3 Gallon Kit. The bigger Fermenter is just to start your 'must' (wine term for wort) in. It'll ferment like crazy in the first few days like beer - hence the need for more space. You then put it on an airlock to finish in the carboy. If it's a wine kit (concentrated grape stuff with yeast pack etc) you probably just bottle it from there. But to rack it to a secondary simply syphon it back into the (sterilised) fermenter to hold it, clean and re-sterilise the carboy. Transfer back by syphon.

Here... if you want to do a wine kit, go to ebay and enter what you want. You can get the boxes of stuff there for about $24, that is... the kits you would normally pay $60 for at the homebrew shop. After you have the box, just buy a good 6 gallon carboy (many of the kits are 6 gallon kits).

If they are charging that much for a 3 gallon kit then that is insane.

For example, since I like Riesling, I will probably end up getting one of these:

http://cgi.ebay.com/RIESLING-WHITE-...ryZ38172QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/JOHANNISBERG-RI...ryZ38172QQssPageNameZWD1VQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Note... a 30 bottle kit is 6 gallons. Figure 5 bottles to a gallon. And... even with the insane shipping costs, those kits are still far more cost-effective.

thanks for the info...i'll have to ask the homebrew store how much those kits make. so i guess i should get a 6 gallon carboy if most the kits are for more than 3 gallons. thanks for the ebay tip, when i order the stuff i'll be sure to check that out first. i have most the equipment from homebrewing beer, so i just need to get the fill ins like an extra carboy , another airlock, etc. -thanks

Exactly... If you brew beer then you have the stuff for wine already, since beer takes more. As for the cost of the kits... for some unknown reason, while malts and the like are priced reasonably in the homebrew shops, wine kits are way overpriced, and it doesn't make any sense. As a result, order those online. And if you aren't into Riesling, which always seems to be nearly shunned, then there are a lot out there. The selection for pinot noir wines, for example, is much greater.

Windaria said:

for some unknown reason, while malts and the like are priced reasonably in the homebrew shops, wine kits are way overpriced, and it doesn't make any sense.

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Is this perhaps because the amount of grapes needed for 5 gallons of wine cost a heck of a lot more than the amount of grain needed for 5 gallons of beer? Grain is pretty darn cheap (an entire bushel of barley cost less than $2, I think.)

You are probably getting wine-kits for cheaper on-line because you are getting them from somebody who bought in large bulk.. which most LHBS's can't really do because they have too low a demand for wine kits by the local shoppers.

thinking out-loud...

-walker

I would say no mostly because what I mean is that, at least looking at the homebrew shop I go to (the two of them realy), their grain seems to be about as cheap as you can find. You can't just find it online for less, they are selling it for fairly close to cost.

That said, they are charging nearly twice (25% if you include shipping) as much as what you can find online.

Quantity and cost of ingredients have nothing to do with it when you are just measuring the markups, the markups on wine kits is insane.

Sure it may be a bulk thing, but if that was the case, and I was a homebrew shop, I would get together with the other homebrew shops in the area, form my own co-op, and buy in bulk when the entire group needs stuff... but maybe that is just me. Point is, they could do it too.

If any of the UK members on here are interested tryout http://www.brewgenie.co.uk/ for online supplies, they are one of the cheapest online.

D@VID said:

If any of the UK members on here are interested tryout http://www.brewgenie.co.uk/ for online supplies, they are one of the cheapest online.

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Thanks for that.

Isn't brewgenie one of the members of this forum? I seem to remember he started a debate about units of measure...slack handfuls etc...

He is/was!