Home Wine Making Supplies

As wine becomes more popular across the United States, home wine-making is growing in popularity along with it. With good grapes and some experience, anyone can make fine wines as a hobby.

Testing Before the Harvest

Proper wine-making begins where viticulture ends: after the harvest of the grapes. However, a wine maker needs one thing that a person growing grapes for eating--either fresh or as raisins--does not: a kit to test for the sugar (Brix), tartaric acid and pH in his product. The balance of these factors is critical in wine making. A rough test can be done just by tasting the grapes, but few people have the experience necessary. A complete kit should cost $60 to $70.

After the Harvest

A crusher and destemmer.

The next piece of equipment comes into play with destemming. While some red-wine makers like having a little stem in their primary fermentation, no one wants a lot, and they should not be part of white-wine making at all. A wine maker with a small property and few grape vines may choose to do this with a pair of clippers and a lot of manual labor--anything beyond that will require a machine. Then the grapes need to be crushed. Once again, this may require the use of a machine. A small hand-crank powered crusher and destemmer will cost about $400.

Primary Fermentation

All wine makers need a strainer. With white wine, the strainer should be used before primary fermentation, to get the grape skins and little bits of remaining stem out. These should be left in for red wine. The juice is poured into a vat. Sulfur tablets are added to kill undesired yeasts and bacteria. The right yeast is added, as well as sugar or acid to balance out a bad harvest. The exact procedure from here will vary, but in all cases the juice is left to undergo primary fermentation for roughly a week. The vats, tools, and sugar can be cobbled together from nonspecialist sources. For example, common 5-gallon plastic buckets can be used for vats. Yeast will cost less than a dollar a packet; acids will cost $5 a bag; a bottle of sulfur tablets is about $3.

Secondary Fermentation

Wine making airlock.

A home wine maker will almost certainly not want to regularly invest in new oak barrels, which can cost as much as $300 for a 30-gallon barrel. Instead, they usually use the 5-gallon carboys (glass is preferred) that are used in office water coolers and put oak chips in. These will cost about $30. They will need to be stopped with rubber stoppers that can fit an airlock. Combined, these cost about $5.

Bottling

Home bottling can be as simple as collecting old wine bottles. These will need to be thoroughly cleaned and sterilized before bottling. A bag of 100 new corks will cost $12 to $15, and can be driven in with a rubber mallet. Labels can be made on your computer and printer.

Resources

• Midwest Supplies
• EC Kraus Supplies
• From Vines to Wines