Do I need any more equipment/Which kits should I look at?

I home brew beer. I just started looking into making wine for my mom and fiancee. I have 2- 6.5 gallon buckets and a better bottle. Is a larger bucket actually necessary?
My mom likes red wine and I think she also likes German eiswein. This might sound selfish, but I do not want to buy one of the 100$ wine ingredient kits for something that I am not going to enjoy myself if it is unnecessary. Are the cheaper kits from Northern Brewer good? Why the price difference? Just ABV? It feels strange to be a newb all over again.

The larger bucket is, unfortunately, necessary. Most kits just won't fit properly into a 6.5 gallon, let alone after some bubbling around. I guess you could try to split it, but I'd be worried about all that headspace. Maybe it wouldn't be a problem...I'll leave that for people more experienced than I to speculate on.

It is hard to say about the kits, because that all depends on what you like. My brother, bless his little heart, can't understand why anybody would want to drink anything other than Coors Lite. I did a side-by-side of some winexpert kits at one point, and found a pretty significant difference between their $50 kits and their $100 kits. The cheaper kits use more concentrated must, which leaves the final product less complex. The flip side is that the more expensive kits tend to take longer to really come into their own though. The price difference doesn't really have much to do with ABV, but rather quality of ingredients.

Thanks. I watched a video where a guy said that he was topping up with water to 6 gallons in a 6.5 gallon carboy, and I wasn't so sure about that. The only wine experience I have is with apfelwein and fermenting almost 5 gallons in a 5 gallon better bottle was fine, but I wasn't sure if that was the case for all wine yeasts or not. Thanks again! Do you have any wine kit recommendations that you particularly enjoyed?

honkey said:

Thanks. I watched a video where a guy said that he was topping up with water to 6 gallons in a 6.5 gallon carboy, and I wasn't so sure about that. The only wine experience I have is with apfelwein and fermenting almost 5 gallons in a 5 gallon better bottle was fine, but I wasn't sure if that was the case for all wine yeasts or not. Thanks again! Do you have any wine kit recommendations that you particularly enjoyed?

Click to expand...

I'm certainly no expert, but I've got the Winexpert New Zealand Pinot Noir going right now. To be honest, we didn't expect much but gave it a shot on a lark. It's only a few weeks old, but the hydro samples have been surprisingly good. The missus is the wine pro in our house, and she buys a lot of pretty high end wine. She was pleased, and I only expect the wine will get better with time.

This is my only experience with kits though. I've made a few other country wines, but not kits. Others will chime in, I hope.

Thanks for the input. I hope people do chime in on kits more. I am also looking at the Brew Masters Warehouse kits as well... So many choices!

Honkey, here is some more input.

The standard wine bucket for equipment kits is 7.8 gal. I did my first 4 (and only 4) wines last spring and summer. I plan to do more, I just need to pick some, get space finish the things around the house that SWMBO requires. Although she is more a wine drinker than I so....

Anyhow I don't remeber how much crud came up the side, just that the primary is 7.8. so take that for what it is worth. On the one hand you have a lot more sugar (a basic wine starts at like 1.080-1.090) but hardly any protien for the yeast to get a good keursan going. (this is all to say, maybe a 6.5, but I don't know - use a blow off tube.)

Almost all the kits are for making 6 gallons of wine, the exception to this that I've seen is desert wines, in particular, Icewines. The Icewine kit's (and similar sweet desert wine kits) usually only make 3 gallon, which makes their $/bottle upwards of $5 or $6 /750ml, however the basic ice wine locally is $30/750 -actually $20/500ml, but keeping the units the same

Since the Ice Wine is only 3 gallons, it could be primaried in a 6.5 gallon bucket, but to do the Secondary - Which for wine really is needed to clearify it - you need to have the same volume as your must/wine. So a 6 gallon kit needs a 6 gallon Carboy/better bottle and a 3 gallon kit needs a 3 gallon secondary. The oxygen in the head space is rumored to beable to create bad flavors - including a vinigar flavor. Not good for wine, but maybe you want to have more salads? [I like salad, but I'm not aiming to make dressing in my carboys ]

Wine maker magazine has online articles about wine kits, pros, cons and differences. (www.winemakermag.com) The basic difference between the 50 and 100 kit for say a Zinfindel is one is 2 gallons of juice and concentrates and the otheris 4 gallons of juice and concentrates. The less/more ispretty much as MalFet describe's it. Almost all of the juice kits are concentrated to some extent as when you get a certian sugar percent, it inhibits bacteria growth by drying out the bacteria.

As to kit makers, I can't recomend any, I've done some Island Mist fruit wines (Green Apple Resling, Pomogranate Zin and Acai Blackberry Cabernet). These are all 'inexpensive kits.' We like the sweet or semi sweet wines. The wines tasted like their names. Advantage of these is that they can be drunk as soon as you bottle, need to age.

Some of what style you choose should be based on what you like. No point making a dry white table wine if you like reds

If you are feeling really experimental, you can make your own. I made 1 gallon of peach wine (not so good) and 1 gallon of cranberry wine - pleasently tart and semi sweet once stablized and back sweeted.

6.5 gallon bucket would be pushing it, but if you put it in a bathtub and keep a cover on it, you should be OK. Kits don't generally foam a lot.

Make the best kit you can afford. The initial price will be forgotten long before the reward is discovered.

Thanks guys. Although I am not much of a wine drinker, it probably would be a good idea for my to get a few batches going for my wine drinking friends. I guess I should just go ahead and get the bigger bucket and a corker.

honkey said:

... and a corker.

Click to expand...

No doubt. Corking by hand is hard.

I just did a vino del vida shiraz in my 6.5 gallon ale pale. I only topped it up to about 5.5 gallons at first. When I transfered it to the secondary (6 gallon better bottle) I added the other .5 gallons and a bottle of wine to top it off. It's not recommended but I just tasted it last night and it tastes fine. However, I did go out and buy a 7.8 gallon bucket for $20 last week for my other wine kit. I also got the colona capper/corker for $60 bucks. It works a lot better than my little black bottle capper. I haven't corked with it yet, but It looks strong and has good reviews.

captainL said:

I just did a vino del vida shiraz in my 6.5 gallon ale pale. I only topped it up to about 5.5 gallons at first. When I transfered it to the secondary (6 gallon better bottle) I added the other .5 gallons and a bottle of wine to top it off. It's not recommended but I just tasted it last night and it tastes fine. However, I did go out and buy a 7.8 gallon bucket for $20 last week for my other wine kit. I also got the colona capper/corker for $60 bucks. It works a lot better than my little black bottle capper. I haven't corked with it yet, but It looks strong and has good reviews.

Click to expand...

I bought the colona to cork wine too, but it has since become the best beer-related purchase I've made in a long time. It ain't terribly cheap, but it is so, so, so much better than that little red hand capper I previously used for beer. Every time I used that thing, I was convinced that I was going to slip, break a bottle, and slice open some major vein or artery.