First Time doing Wine!

[nickjam]

Brewing a Chardonnay from William Brewing Kit.

1) Ok, so I have read a little bit on doing wine. I am about to start my first batch from a kit. 5 gallons of wine. My kit says to throw on an airlock in primary yet I have read to use a towel or napkin which should I go with?

2) Do I need to airate before pitching the yeat into primary?

3) I heard that for secondary I should fill my 5 gallon carboy ALL the way up to right below the airlock to have as little surface area exposed to air as possible. Won't the airlock keep the air out and the wine produce a CO2 layer to protect it or should I just fill up the carboy to the very top?

That should get me started with this kit.

Thanks in advance!

NICK

 

[rod]

i have only done 6 or so wine kits myself so i am no expert but all the wines have turned out fine
i used the towel/napkin on most as it was explained to me that the extra oxygen is good at the start. one i used the airlock on. i could tell no difference in the final product.
i just splash in the top off water to bring the liquid up to the 23 litres my kits state - it seems to be plenty of aeration-all fermentations went well
i fill the secondary to where the taper starts at the top and give the wine a swirl to release some o2 to purge remaining air. i always see some fermentation in secondary so i don't worry about filling to the very top. you also need room for the final addition of campden and sorbate and finings.
hope this helps

 

[Yooper]

When you make a kit, it's best to follow the directions the first time. But yes, you do need to minimize headspace when making wine. My kit makes 6 gallons, so check your instructions to make sure you're only supposed to make 5. I think almost all of them make 6. You can top up with a similar wine- I made a valpollicella so I topped off with that.

 

[nickjam]

I just mixed everything together and pitched my yeast. 100 degree water for the yeast! That felt wierd. But that's what the instructions on the back of my yeast said. The wine stuff was probably about 80 degrees, but the 1/4 cup of water that I hydrated the yeast in was 100 degrees. Now I am worried just like I was withmy first batch of beer! Did I screw something up? Is it going to taste good? Will it even start fermenting? Ahh, love the mind.

NICK

 

[david_the_greek]

Ah its so reassuring to hear someone else freak out about silly things like that, I mean if I wore dirty shorts in my brew room it made me paranoid! The wine kits are pretty easy, to the point where they worry you because you know they cant be "that simple" I just sampled my first wine that I made, which is at the point where it is clearing and I am about to transfer it to another carboy for aging and I thought I seriously messed this thing up. I first dropped a rubber o-ring into it, then I tried fruitlessly to spoon it out (after the yeast was in there already which is a no no I guess), I aerated the cr#p out of it when I wasn't supposed while transferring it to the secondary and to top it off I constantly pulled off the stopper to smell what was going on inside. Now the point of all that is that I just tried the sample before aging and it was actually good! It tasted better than a fair amount of the junk that I have been served at weddings and this hasn't even been aged! These kits are hard to mess up so don't worry.