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Really making our own wine

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    Really making our own wine

    For years, we've been driving to Windsor Ont and sort of "making" home brew. At one time we had 15 different types of wine, using the stores professional level equipment and their expertise to make each batch of wine using winexpert kits.

    Fast forward, we moved, and the border is still closed anyway, decided to buy the equipment to make our own. Started with our "table wine", white zin. First two batches have come out extremely well, and have been put into 3L bags which come with their own box. Wife also bought Brewsy kits, which is set up for smaller batches. Brewsy Cab is still processing, and I'm still on the fence. Mostly because unlike winexpert, brewsy instruction look like they were written by an engineer, and are incomplete. Early taste showed it to be adequate. I've broken away from their instructions and following more of the WE instructions.

    I don't know what I'm going to do about higher end wines that really need to age. We've moved and no longer have a basement. Crawl space has enough leakage that so far this summer, the temperature is rather temperate and stable. Also need to buy a corker.

    #2
    Get a floor corker - you won't regret it!

    Comment


    • 58limited
      58limited commented
      Editing a comment
      What he said - A floor corker is a great investment. Makes life so much easier and saves your wrists.

    #3
    I tried the "hand" corker in the store, we decided to go with floor corker. white zin is going into bags/boxes. Just started a table red that will go into bottles.

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      #4
      Wines are challenging to get. This may not be news to you, but many people still struggle with finding the best deals on wine. This is partly because ignorance is bliss. It's also because wine is highly personal, and every person is different. But what we do know is that certain brands make better wines than others. It all comes down to taste and staying away from brands you think are sub-par. Anyway, you can use this famous platform for Italian wines to order any sorts you want. They always deliver very fast and have a wide variety of brands.
      Last edited by saralucano; August 16, 2021, 08:12 AM.

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        #5
        Interested in this. Do you grow your own grapes?

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          #6
          Depending on where you are now, it might be worth checking a local homebrew store if you have one. It's nice to get your hands on some equipment before buying. Wine Barrel in Livonia is good, and so is Adventures in Homebrewing (although I think their Taylor location is still closed). AIH has a good webstore if you still want to "order local".

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            #7
            My wife makes whine every time I let her run out of chocolate on accident.

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              #8
              Bringing back this old post with an update.

              We made 32 boxes of Winexperts white zin, and took them in our 5th wheel for several months. We actually managed to run out. My wine "stores" became very slim, and so I set out to increase our wine production, because we leave again in September. Three higher end batches are going to bulk age over the winter, we keep the heat on in our house while we're gone. It's gotten so crazy, I had to create a spreadsheet for all the wine processing. At one point I had 9 batches of wine going all at the same time.

              Thanks to Amazon, who shipped us the wrong order, I got two free batches of Pinot Grigio. We tried to return it, and Amazon said keep it, it's your gift from us.

              We tried a Winexpert chocolate raspberry port, and OMFG is that stuff tasty. One definitely needs to have that with chocolate cake. I'm getting ready to bottle it today, we like it so much, ordered another box of it!

              Also making a batch of strawberry wine, made from juice. That's still in primary, and it's being a little bitch and won't finish up!

              One I'm really excited about, Finer Wines reisling. What makes there product different, they don't pasteurize the juice, it is shipped to you frozen. I threw elder flower into the secondary processing. Elder flower is supposed to be what turns resisling into piesporter.
              Last edited by phecksel; June 12, 2022, 08:44 AM.

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                #9
                My brother in law's winery. Everyone makes fun of him for looking like Frodo in this picture 😂

                Click image for larger version  Name:	Frodo-Wine.jpg Views:	0 Size:	115.5 KB ID:	1235692

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                  #10
                  DOGS WHINING and Crying Sound Effect | Show this to your Dog and See What Happens HD - YouTube

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                    #11
                    32 boxes?!? I feel kinda inadequate with my paltry 8 batches aging right now. I still have two boxes of Chocolate Mocha and two of Chocolate Raspberry port to make.

                    +1 on the port, since they are 3 gallon kits I always buy two boxes to make a 6 gallon batch. They age very well too: I opened my last bottle of Chocolate Raspberry Port at 6 years - it only got better with time. The regular port started to fizzle after 4 years. Try the Chocolate Orange Port, it is really good too.

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                      #12
                      Never thought of making wine.

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                        #13
                        Originally posted by 58limited View Post
                        32 boxes?!? I feel kinda inadequate with my paltry 8 batches aging right now. I still have two boxes of Chocolate Mocha and two of Chocolate Raspberry port to make.

                        +1 on the port, since they are 3 gallon kits I always buy two boxes to make a 6 gallon batch. They age very well too: I opened my last bottle of Chocolate Raspberry Port at 6 years - it only got better with time. The regular port started to fizzle after 4 years. Try the Chocolate Orange Port, it is really good too.
                        We put the white zin into boxes, each holds 4 bottles.

                        Most excellent idea about doing two batches of port at once.

                        We'll have to look for the chocolate orange port.

                        I have 3 bottles of the bourbon barrel cab left. I'm thinking we may bottle of the cab that I had intended to let bulk age over the winter, and start another batch.

                        Comment


                          #14
                          phecksel The flavored ports seem to be rotated every few years. This year I couldn't find the chocolate orange port so I bought the chocolate raspberry and the chocolate mocha. Other times I've made a black forest (cherry chocolate) kit, coffee kit, salted caramel kit, and a blackberry port kit - all very good. I ended up with almost 300 bottles of port and a couple of hundred of regular reds but I've drank them all or given them away over the years without making more. Trying to restock this year. I've already bottled 5 batches that I made last year and bulk aged for a year.

                          One of the best chocolate orange ports that I've had was given to me as a sample at DeFalco's home brew supply in Houston. One of the employees took an RJ Spagnol's chocolate orange port kit, added 2 ounces of fresh shaved orange peel that he soaked in Grand Marnier, then fortified with a pretty expensive bottle of cognac. I tend to use $30 bottles when I fortify, that guy used Remy Martin X/O ($135/bottle), I can't justify that expense myself.

                          Comment


                            #15
                            Originally posted by rlozinak View Post
                            Never thought of making wine.
                            Winexpert product makes it super simple. I'm kind of excited about this Finer Wine brand kits. We'll see how the reisling tastes when I rack tomorrow or Tuesday.

                            You need a bucket, I have mixed feelings about getting buckets and carboy with a valve, they all seem to drip. You'll want at least 2 carboys. I'm kind of graduating to wide mouth PET, but you have to order a rope style carrier for them. Glass, if you get italian glass, it's probably ok, but Chinese glass carboy have a bad habit of breaking all on their own, spreading wine all over the floor. Glass is also heavy. You'll need sanitizer, most people use Starsan, I make it up a gallon at a time and have a 1 gallon container it sits in. It's good for a week or so. Everything that touches the wine, gets dunked in or sanitizer swished around.

                            You'll need to get corker equipment, and cork. I have both #8 and Private Messages for the different bottles. I prefer natural cork or artificial corks. My corker is a floor stand. I tried the bottle only unit, and decided that wasn't in my best interest.

                            You'll need something to measure specific gravity. You'll need a siphon of some sort.

                            The white zin costs us about $2.75 per bottle to make. It's a wine that if I bought it in the store, I'd expect it to be around $10 a bottle. The Cabernet I mentioned above, would be on the order of $50-70 a bottle in the store, it's that good. Our costs are about $7.50 a bottle.

                            The quality alone is enough reason to make your own, and like I said before, the kits make it easy.

                            Comment


                            • 58limited
                              58limited commented
                              Editing a comment
                              That is why i make wine kits: Really good wine for a cheap price.

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