disparity between wine makers and beer makers

[pvtpublic]

It comes down to how involved you want to be. I brew all grain, and some times with a triple decoction mash. My dad has been using a Mr. Beer kit for the past ten years. He's still happy as hell about it, and on the other hand, still loves brewing with me on my system. I make simple wines because that's what I enjoy doing, that's the results I enjoy, and that's the only process I'm going to do. If you're into the fine details of wine making, it's equivalent to diving into water chemistry and the art of sours and lambics. It's not easy to say the least. But it's still less involved when you don't have to recipe build with a grain bill, hops schedule, mash schedule, BU/GU ratio, hops utilization, mash efficiency, and fermentation temps.

Edit: I don't use kit wines and I never have and never will. Always fresh fruit that I picked/bought/foraged, mostly foraged.

 

[pvtpublic]

I gotta add, beer brewing has clone kits. When was the last time you saw a Kenwright clone?

 

[kevin58]

I make both beer and wine but personally, wine is pretty much just adding water and waiting. There is not a lot to discuss.

 

[renstyle]

The reason why there are fewer winemaking groups (at least in the US) is the difficulty of making great wine and especially doing it from grape, rather than kit. Modern winemaking is more fussy than brewing, grapes or fresh must can only be acquired generally in one small window of the year, and the leap to produce good wine is a lot more challenging than learning to brew great beer. It's not like beer where you can start on a kit and progress incrementally into all the more hands-on parts of brewing.

Most home winemaking is either country wine or kit wine. There's nothing wrong with country wine but it's a small slice of the wine market (at least in the US) and talking about pouring a kit wine in a carboy doesn't lead to a lot of great conversation. Nothing wrong with making wine kits but of all the people I know who have made wine kits I know very few who ever advanced past kits or seemed eager to talk about their adventures with winemaking.

Thanks for this explanation. It's common sense but I never really took into account the seasonality of sugar sources for wine must, even using locally sourced "wild" berries (mulberry, raspberry, etc).

Malted grains can be purchased dry, and store for months. I do all grain, so this means I can brew basically whenever.

The annual gathering around the 'ol apple press is taking on a greater meaning for me now. The act of MAKING cider is fairly trivial.... but gathering the SOURCE material, especially if you want it local/organic/etc.

Honey for mead is basically in the same ballpark but at least storage for scheduling purposes isn't difficult since most folks want to sell you clean honey.

For you folks that live in areas where grape grows are abundant: is there an affordable way to score some fresh juice like mead folks can do with a good honey connection?

Dunno why but that sounded alot more "cheech and chong" than I was intending LOL....

 

[BPenny]

Thanks for this explanation. It's common sense but I never really took into account the seasonality of sugar sources for wine must, even using locally sourced "wild" berries (mulberry, raspberry, etc).

Malted grains can be purchased dry, and store for months. I do all grain, so this means I can brew basically whenever.

The annual gathering around the 'ol apple press is taking on a greater meaning for me now. The act of MAKING cider is fairly trivial.... but gathering the SOURCE material, especially if you want it local/organic/etc.

Honey for mead is basically in the same ballpark but at least storage for scheduling purposes isn't difficult since most folks want to sell you clean honey.

For you folks that live in areas where grape grows are abundant: is there an affordable way to score some fresh juice like mead folks can do with a good honey connection?

Dunno why but that sounded alot more "cheech and chong" than I was intending LOL....

I just noticed on your profile that you live in Central Iowa, where do you live? I’m in Des Moines and we can't grow vinifera grapes here, but if you’re ok with cold hardy hybrids there are quite a few vineyards in central Iowa and most of them will sell you grapes for relatively cheap.

 

[renstyle]

Live in Boone, work in Saylorville (soon Ankeny), originally from NW Iowa (Kingsley).

I have a friend up in Marquette who has taken me on local honey runs for his various meads. He started out like many with bulk "Sue Bee" blended honey, which was okay, but wanted to play with the terroir.

I prefer his raspberry/lingonberry/elderberry mead batches, which are usually on the sweet side.

I've never considered making wine myself, tho my mother is a fan of whites. Sweet reds sometimes for me, which is odd since I do not indulge in soft drinks since I have started brewing, figuring what was the point LOL.

 

[renstyle]

Well folks.... you've got me thinking that I <definitely> need to get my mead friend going on a sweet red!

 

[BPenny]

Well folks.... you've got me thinking that I <definitely> need to get my mead friend going on a sweet red!

If you like meads, try making a pyment with some local wine grapes.

 

[bracconiere]

Ha ha for all you guys who think beer making is more complex than wine making obviously are only making kit wines.

i don't always make wine, but when i do, i have my barefoot pregnant wife wash here feet to crush the grapes! j/k

Sunflower seeds????

i'd imagine too fatty not starchy enough? as far as cat tails, maybe with some enzymes?

 

[BPenny]

i don't always make wine, but when i do, i have my barefoot pregnant wife wash here feet to crush the grapes! j/k





i'd imagine too fatty not starchy enough? as far as cat tails, maybe with some enzymes?

I’ve never made a kit wine, so typically for a 5-6 gallon batch of wine I will harvest, crush, de-stem and press 60-100 lbs of grapes by hand. While I would definitely agree with anyone who says that this is a more labor intensive and physically demanding process than making beer, I don’t add water, sugar, sulfites, or anything else to my wine. I just smash the grapes with my hands and press the cap down daily until I decide to press and either transfer to a carboy for aging, or bottle soon thereafter if I am making Pet Nat. I have a four year old that can describe the basic steps of the wine making process, but he would not be able to formulate a beer recipe or tell me how to perform a mash, hop, or bottle condition a beer with any degree of accuracy. Simpler does not neccesarily mean easier. It’s similar to digging a ditch vs wiring a light switch. One is simpler but more physically demanding, the other is more complex although physically less demanding.

 

[bracconiere]

the other is more complex although physically less demanding.

i know the feeling everytime i have to carry my spent grain out to the garden.....

 

[BPenny]

i know the feeling everytime i have to carry my spent grain out to the garden.....

I will say BIAB can get pretty rough when I have to pull a steaming brew bag full of grain out of the pot of sparge water, then hold it there while it slowly drains and burns my forearms. In retrospect, maybe I’ve been doing everything the hard way.

 

[bracconiere]

maybe I’ve been doing everything the hard way.

i thought you BIABers used a pulley? i still use a round cooler...

 

[BPenny]

i thought you BIABers used a pulley? i still use a round cooler...

Yeah a pulley would be the logical thing to do, but since I can technically get by without one on 5 gallon batches, I’m probably going to keep abusing myself in this way for the foreseeable future.

 

[pvtpublic]

Yeah, pulley for sure, off of the truss/joist/straight sheet rock! It won't even cost a Jackson

 

[BPenny]

making wine on the professional level is at least 50% about growing the grapes. As a home beer brewer, I have access to almost the exact same ingredients as the best breweries in the world….

On the other hand, I do not have access to the same grapes as the best wineries.

Exactly! Great wine can be a thing of unrivaled beauty and haunting, otherworldly complexity. But you just summed up the entire reason I make (and drink) mostly beer.

 

[bwible]

Yeah a pulley would be the logical thing to do, but since I can technically get by without one on 5 gallon batches, I’m probably going to keep abusing myself in this way for the foreseeable future.

Or a large collander that can sit on top of the pot and hold your grain bag?

 

[bracconiere]

Or a large collander that can sit on top of the pot and hold your grain bag?

i was going to link to that thread, and tag them...but their name escapes me....

 

[z-bob]

Yeah a pulley would be the logical thing to do, but since I can technically get by without one on 5 gallon batches, I’m probably going to keep abusing myself in this way for the foreseeable future.

Here's a picture from another thread that shows how I do it. I lift the bag up by hand, don't try to hoist it up because that would put double the load on the cabinet handle. After it drains just a little, I tie it off. I typically mash about 8 pounds of grain.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/thread...hout-using-a-hoist.696478/page-5#post-9299025

 

[bracconiere]

hmmm, so we're allready getting into the details of brewing different ways in this thread?


it just happened organicaly too.... lol

 

[BPenny]

Sorry, as soon as I mentioned my plight with BIAB, this whole thing just went off the rails

 

[bracconiere]

Sorry, as soon as I mentioned my plight with BIAB, this whole thing just went off the rails

@bitterbad is probably hanging out at "winemakingtalk" now anyway.....

 

[bitterbad]

@bitterbad is probably hanging out at "winemakingtalk" now anyway.....

Actually i'm still here talking about cider!

 

[bitterbad]

also just enjoying reading this discussion, learning a lot

 

[Cider Wraith]

This thread reminds me of a post I've contemplated making for the past few weeks. Lots of interesting angles here.

A grocery store we frequent is about the size of two city blocks, maybe two to three acres of covered shopping space. I was trying to guess the number of different wines they sell, and I guessed between 200 and 300 and finally asked the manager. The actual number was at least several thousand. I asked how many different beers were offered and they didn't know, I might guess between 80 and 120 different beers.

Now, that store offers about twelve different ciders, and only about two to three are genuinely dry ciders. So, in a place where literally thousands of alcoholic beverages are sold only about two to three are what I would consider buying. And they are outrageously over-the-top pricy at $20 ~ $30 a bottle.

And, it's interesting to note that beer is now approaching wine and sometimes exceeding it in cost at restaurants. As you all know, the typical "pint" glass ain't no stinkn' pint, it's a 14 ounce "shaker" glass and when poured an inch down you're lucky if you're getting the equivalent of an ordinary bottle of beer. And now a "pint" of beer (which isn't a pint) are moving up into the range of $8 ~ $10 glass. The last time we want to a restaurant I just got water.

Lots of interesting wrinkles in all of this

 

[madscientist451]

To me, wine is more about chemistry. Way more than beer. Acid titration and stuff like that. There seem to be way more “chemicals” or additives that go in wine than beer.

Doing it from fresh juice or squeezing your own grapes would be a whole different challenge. Again, its all chemistry.

I make wine, cider, mead and beer.
I don't use any chemicals at all except campden at racking and some Fermaid O in the mead. (not really a chemical?)
I choose to go the "natural" route, that means letting the wine be what it will be and solving flavor issues by blending.
Some of my wine is better than others, I start with local grapes or buckets of west coast juice, I've never used a kit.
I recently picked 100 lbs of Marquette grapes at $1/lb. I made 3 gallons of rose, 4 gallons of "free run" red and 3 gallons of lower abv "second run red" (added about a gallon of water to the free run must) so about $2 a bottle, but there was a lot of labor involved. White wines are much easier and are ready much faster.
Wines made with the west coast grape juice is more like $3 a bottle, but its also way less work.
My red wines would probably be improved by intervention with chemicals, but I'm just too lazy and if I'm really picky about what grapes/juice I use, it comes out fine. I've tried many varieties of grapes and juice and there's just some that don't work for me and my lazy ways.
As far as a disparity in wine making/brewing clubs, yeah that is real, but there are some wine making clubs around, start with your local brewing/winemaking store and see if they know anything.

 

[BPenny]

I make wine, cider, mead and beer.
I don't use any chemicals at all except campden at racking and some Fermaid O in the mead. (not really a chemical?)
I choose to go the "natural" route, that means letting the wine be what it will be and solving flavor issues by blending.
Some of my wine is better than others, I start with local grapes or buckets of west coast juice, I've never used a kit.
I recently picked 100 lbs of Marquette grapes at $1/lb. I made 3 gallons of rose, 4 gallons of "free run" red and 3 gallons of lower abv "second run red" (added about a gallon of water to the free run must) so about $2 a bottle, but there was a lot of labor involved. White wines are much easier and are ready much faster.
Wines made with the west coast grape juice is more like $3 a bottle, but its also way less work.
My red wines would probably be improved by intervention with chemicals, but I'm just too lazy and if I'm really picky about what grapes/juice I use, it comes out fine. I've tried many varieties of grapes and juice and there's just some that don't work for me and my lazy ways.
As far as a disparity in wine making/brewing clubs, yeah that is real, but there are some wine making clubs around, start with your local brewing/winemaking store and see if they know anything.

It seems like we have a very similar philosophy about beer, wine, cider and mead. I wouldn’t say that your minimalist approach is lazy. For everyone’s sake, I’m going to refrain from going on a rant about needlessly adding synthetic chemicals to food and drink. Instead I’ll just limit myself to saying that chemical interventions for the sake of manipulating the wine might get you something that tastes more like mass produced supermarket wines, but frankly, those are a dime a dozen, so I wouldn’t neccesarily call that an improvement, just a different style of wine.

 

[Closet Fermenter]

To me, wine is more about chemistry. Way more than beer. Acid titration and stuff like that. There seem to be way more “chemicals” or additives that go in wine than beer. Beer takes longer and is more of a process on brew day with mash and boil and hop utilization but we have software that makes all that easy. I always found the chemistry part of wine making to be more challenging and feel like you almost need to be a chemist to make good wine.

We drink wine regularly, usually with food more so than beer. I buy almost all my wine but brew a significant portion of the beer I drink. Because I still also buy good beer.

My experience related to wine making is box kits from Wineexpert. Literally dump, add water, and stir. They give you pre-adjusted must and numbered, pre-measured packets with each chemical additiion. Thats easy enough and I’ve had decent results, though honestly not better than even most of the “cheaper” wines you can buy for $8 a bottle nowadays. The kits are expensive, now around $150-$200 for a 6 gallon kit that makes about 30 bottles.

Doing it from fresh juice or squeezing your own grapes would be a whole different challenge. Again, its all chemistry.

I make a lot of wine. If you want a fairly low cost, balanced wine without all the chemistry, pick up some Welch’s at the grocery store. There’s no sugar added, no preservatives or chemicals, and the Concord grape is excellent choice for wine. The good part is that you don’t have to grow, pick, clean, squeeze grapes and you don’t have to worry about on “off” year. Dial in the recipe to your preferences, and you can expect consistent results.
I do fresh muscadines too, and it is tremendously more work and the results are varied. To me, fresh fruit wine making is the “all grain” side of wine making, but perhaps more involved than the brewing, depending on your process. I enjoy it all.

 

[hawkwing]

I just crushed and destemmed about 600 lbs of grapes. I didn’t have a destemmer so had to fish them out by hand. Took me two long days. Basically three full working days to get fermentation started after taking all the measurements and additions. Never had to add any sugar but a few needed some tartaric acid. I added a maceration enzyme, potassium metabisulfite and yeast.

It’s definately hard work. Wine grapes are not easy to get where I am. I had to find an importer and they are rare here.

I’ve made country wines where I pick chokecherries and that’s a lot of work too.

Beer is nice because Of the labor aspect is less. But it was still a bit work figuring a recipe. If you have the recipe in hand a repeat is pretty easy.

As long as I’m able I plan to keep making everything.

 

[bitterbad]

As long as I’m able I plan to keep making everything.

Love this. I live by this honestly. I like coffee so i learned how to make every espresso drink, I like pastries and bread so I learned how to bake, I like all sorts of cooking traditions so I learned those too, gardening, fishing, foraging. Most of these I learned simply because I'd rather have them at home than have to go to a cafe/grocery store/restaurant for them and spend 5 times as much money. Crazy to me how this isn't just the standard way to live.