Noob wine question

[mr_bell]

I've been brewing for over a year, and would like to do some wine. Can a six gal batch of wine be fermented in the standard 6.5 gal ale pale (or a 6.5 gal glass carboy, I have both), or do I need to buy the 7.9 bucket?

Thanks.

 

[jsbiral]

I'm a newbie at wine too (only made two batches) but I just made a 5 gallon batch of strawberry wine and used a 6.5 gallon fermenter and there was very little space left in it so if you are going to do 6 gallons, I would recommend using the 7.9 gallon bucket.

 

[Yooper]

You can do it, but it does foam quite a bit. Not as much as beer, but there is some. You stir it in primary, though, so you may not have a problem. What you can do is make 5.5 gallons, though. What size carboy do you have for secondary?

If you're making a fruit wine, the fruit is usually removed after about 5 days, so the level goes way down. Of course, if you're making a juice wine, it'll stay right where it is!

 

[malkore]

YOu can re-use glass, but if you have plastic fermenters, you want a separate 'dedicated' wine bucket for primary.

wine stains and embeds its aromas in plastic just like beer (mostly the hops) do.