Wine with beer equipment and bottles

[Bilc16]

Hi folks,
I'm a brewer who may try my hand at wine soon. There's usually a few bottles of wine opened each Sunday for dinner down the in laws and figure it'd be much cheaper to make my own. I've done 2 batches of Ed Wort's Apfelwien so I was thinking that I'm not far off too. I'm sure there are many people here that make wine and brew. I was planning on buying a new primary bucket for only wine, but is there anything else I would need? Has anyone bottled wine in beer bottles and capped them instead of corking? Cheers!

 

[huesmann]

You should be able to use your beer equipment. Do you have carboys and a racking cane or siphon?

 

[Honda88]

you really should have atleast two carboys but you can do it with one if you siphon it into the bucket and then clean and re siphon(however this becomes a serious pain). The glass carboy helps you see where your siphon is at so you dont suck up a bunch of sediment......but yea as far as bottling goes, as long as your wine is done fermenting completely you should be able to use beer bottles no problem

 

[Bilc16]

Thanks guys. I have a few carboys and everything else to rack and bottle it in beer bottles. I think I'm going to make a go at it. Thanks again. Any suggestions on a first wine? A red.

 

[KevinM]

It depends on what you and others like to drink. Plus, how fast you want to drink it. A mist style wine is drinkable pretty quickly, has low alcohol and may be on the overly sweet side. Whites may take a few months to a year to be ready to drink a red, generally longer. There are of course some situations where this is different, where some whites take years and some reds are ready early on.

 

[Yooper]

For a cheaper red, the Winexpert kits are pretty good. I've done the vapolicella, sangiovese, shiraz, malbec, and maybe one or two others.

You'll need a 6 gallon carboy- not a 6.5 gallon or a 5 gallon. but otherwise, you should have every thing you need.