The Equipment

[MuNchiezzz]

First off HELLO EVERYONE!!!

I was wondering if it makes more sense to just buy the equipment needed piece by piece instead of as a kit so I get what I absolutely need instead of extra stuff I may not use (as seems to be with most kits). I'm just looking to make fruit wine so I'm guessing I really only need:
-1st Fermenter
-2nd Fermenter (carboy)
-Thermometer
-Airlock
-Hydrometer
-Sanitary Cleansers
-Corker

Am I missing anything? And kit or buy separately? Thanks everyone!!

 

[bernardsmith]

You will need some tubing to rack and perhaps a self priming siphon. With your hydrometer you might want a measuring cylinder to collect the sample and if you are collecting a sample then you may want a turkey baster (dedicated) to collect the sample.
Fruit for fruit wines might be best macerated in nylon paint bags or similar, not so much for the maceration but so that you can more easily remove the fruit.
If your plan is to bottle the wine (rather than keg it, for example) then you may want a dedicated brush to clean the bottles with and you may want some kind of large enough bucket so that you can soak and sanitize all your equipment that will touch the wine.
For your primary I would go with a bucket and that bucket needs to be covered only with a cloth.
And a good kitchen scale - one that measures in pounds or kilos and one that measures in grams. The latter because if you are adding nutrients or acids or tannin or K-meta or sorbate while you CAN measure using volume , volume is exact enough for home cooking, it's not really exact enough even for baking and wine making often benefits from exact measurements

 

[MuNchiezzz]

You will need some tubing to rack and perhaps a self priming siphon. With your hydrometer you might want a measuring cylinder to collect the sample and if you are collecting a sample then you may want a turkey baster (dedicated) to collect the sample.
Fruit for fruit wines might be best macerated in nylon paint bags or similar, not so much for the maceration but so that you can more easily remove the fruit.
If your plan is to bottle the wine (rather than keg it, for example) then you may want a dedicated brush to clean the bottles with and you may want some kind of large enough bucket so that you can soak and sanitize all your equipment that will touch the wine.
For your primary I would go with a bucket and that bucket needs to be covered only with a cloth.
And a good kitchen scale - one that measures in pounds or kilos and one that measures in grams. The latter because if you are adding nutrients or acids or tannin or K-meta or sorbate while you CAN measure using volume , volume is exact enough for home cooking, it's not really exact enough even for baking and wine making often benefits from exact measurements

Thank you much. There were a few things I knew that I didn't mention like the scale and bottles and a strainer. I didn't think about weighing everything instead of going by volume, I guess weighing would be a better and more accurate way with something's.

I guess I need to make a list of what I need and price it and then compare it to a kit and go from there.

 

[bernardsmith]

You might use a kit to see what they offer as "necessary" and then decide why you need each item or why you don't and then price the things you need. The kit is going to bundle stuff that you might never need but it may include something that you never thought you would need - and you will - like a long handled stainless steel (or plastic) spoon for stirring (if you are dissolving sugar in gallons of water, for example)

 

[Bocochoco]

Keep in mind a hydrometer wont work with heavy fruit wines. You'll need a refractometer. They're around $40 but once you use it you'll never want to use a floating hydrometer again.
Those thermometer stickers that you use for fishtanks work great on carboys btw.

 

[bernardsmith]

I am sorry but I disagree about an hydrometer for two reasons.
1. You are measuring the sugar content of juice diluted in some water and not whether the fruit is ripe. Your gravity will not be higher than about 1.100 and the juice you extract will be perfectly sufficient in volume to use an hydrometer (1 - 5 or more gallons).
2. A refractometer is designed to be used with water as the dilutant of the fruit (AKA juice itself) but shortly after you pitch the yeast your liquid will include ethanol and light refracts differently in ethanol than it does in water so you need to use calculators to obtain a reasonable approximation to the sugar content left. Refractometers are perfect for measuring the sugar content of the fruit itself but not the must you produce from the fruit or rather the must after you have pitched the yeast.

 

[Bocochoco]

When I think of this argument my brain goes to how they didn't have hydrometers and refractometers hundreds of years ago and made great wines just using their senses and experience.
I use correction factor calculators and ignore the miniscule differences.
Yet don't ever tell a wine guy 0.25% abv isn't a big deal lol.

 

[Bocochoco]

Also it's very rare to see people using "an" before an H properly. Kudos to you. Makes me happy lol

 

[bernardsmith]

I'm from Scotland and I speak (gulp) the Queen's English (She is Elizabeth the II of England but the Scots never had an Elizabeth so for the Scots calling her the second was a huge slap in the face). But to your point about a partial percentage point of ABV -First of all hydrometers indicate the ABV because they indicate the density of the liquid but the accuracy of the instrument is too rough to be accurate to even 2 points of gravity.

And Second, the reliability of a reading from an hydrometer is just as bad. The surface the cylinder is on must be a flat plane, and your eye must be at the miniscus and there cannot be any gas dissolved in solution and the temperature of the liquid must be taken into account and and and... So anyone who refers to an ABV that is other than a whole number is talking nonsense. For taxation purposes there are tools that measure the alcohol content of wine ( I believe you are subject to pay higher taxes if your wine is at 16% ABV)

But that's not a tool that most of us hobbyists would possess. NIST certified hydrometers cost about $30 -$100 each and I believe that by law they must be read together with the temperature of the liquid.

 

[Bocochoco]

Pretty sure my main reason is how friggin easy it is to break the hydrometers lol.
The conversion math is basic calculator stuff for the refractometer and you only need a tiny amount. Better than a test tube or worrying about a tiny bubble on the hydrometer messing up your reading. Hydrometers are quite simple otherwise.

 

[bernardsmith]

When I think of this argument my brain goes to how they didn't have hydrometers and refractometers hundreds of years ago and made great wines just using their senses and experience.
I use correction factor calculators and ignore the miniscule differences.
Yet don't ever tell a wine guy 0.25% abv isn't a big deal lol.

Hundreds of years ago they used an egg and its height above the liquid when it was floated in solution as a "measure" of the density of the must and of the wine. If you routinely made wine then you would know what size egg to use to eyeball its height in the liquid and you would make your wine with some consistency given all the other variables that come into play.

 

[Bocochoco]

Hundreds of years ago they used an egg and its height above the liquid when it was floated in solution as a "measure" of the density of the must and of the wine. If you routinely made wine then you would know what size egg to use to eyeball its height in the liquid and you would make your wine with some consistency given all the other variables that come into play.

I don't doubt there were/are countless ways to measure but an egg isn't going to give you a very accurate to the percentage ABV and it only reinforces my point that getting it to the lab level isn't necessary. It's why I just use the refractometer. I'm not in the business of selling my wine. Its only for gifts and personal use.