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Making wine at home

Home winemaking is fun easy and very economical. It is also fun and can be challenging. You can customize your wine by adding any number of flavorings such as: apricots, figs, plums, almonds or even garlic. I actually know someone who adds cloves of garlic to his pinot grigio and drinks it, I used it for cooking and it was great!

To get started making you own all you need is our $78.00 winemaking kit:.

7.9 Gallon primary fermenter
6 gallon glass carboy
Racking cane and bottling wand
corker and corks
sanitizer and bottle brush
hydrometer

The hardest part of making wine with this kit is deciding which type of wine you want to make. We have tried many types of wine kits from many different companies and have found WineExpert kits to be the best. We carry a large variety of styles from ammarone to zinfandel.

As a beginner winemaker, the easiest way to get started is to make your first batch from concentrate and follow the directions exactly. You will end up with 30 bottles of very nice table wine that you can serve with confidence to even the most fussy wine drinkers. Best of all it will cost less than $3.00 a bottle.

The simple instructions of winemaking:

1. Sanitize your equipment and mix wine kit with water and the yeast pack and let ferment for 7 - 10 days.
2. Siphon into sanitized glass carboy and let ferment 10 more days
3. Add packet #2,#3 and #4 to kill the yeast and let clear for another two weeks.
4. Sanitize your bottles and corks, then fill and store your wine until your ready to drink them.

It’s that easy folks!

Because wine is like women.. they both get better with age!

THE GOLDEN RULES OF WINEMAKING:

1) KEEP IT CLEAN! Use 1tbsp bisulphite per gallon of water and let stand 10 min. No rinse. Sanitize carboys, bottles, corks and inside of racking cane every time before you use it.

2) KEEP IT COOL! Try to keep your wine under 75 degrees at all times. Stable temps are better than low temps. The hall closet is much better than the shed or garage.

3) KEEP IT TOPPED OFF! Oxygen is the #1 killer of good wine. after the airlock is inactive you must fill in the bottle with wine or water to one inch of the stopper. NO STEALING!! If you take one bottle out, you must bottle the whole batch or put it in smaller carboys! Siphon your wine carefully. Don't let it splash and foam up and never use a funnel after fermentation has begun. This will over oxidize your wine and give it a dry paper/vinegar taste.

One of the best ways to make better wine is to know what you like and how to ask for it. Taking a tutored wine tasting is a very good way to learn the difference in wine terms like "chewy tannins" and "dry wine", which are often confused with each other. There are many good places to attend a wine tasting 101 course. This class will teach you what types of wines there are and what you are tasting in each style. Once you know the proper terminology of wine flavors, it will help you choose a wine more suited to your taste. Check out our links page for where to find a class.

Here is a good Wine making fourm