Basic Winemaking Equipment

I mentioned that a person could start making wine from a wine kit with a purchase of $100 in wine making equipment. Most any homebrew supply store that sells the wine kits have wine making equipment starter kits.

These equipment starter kits usually include a carboy to make a 6 gallon wine kit with, but the price will vary if the carboy is plastic or glass. It should also include a plastic bucket, fermentation lock and bung, siphon tubing, auto siphon, bottle filler, wine bottle brush, carboy brush, double lever corker, corks, hydrometer, sanitizer, instructions. This kit starts around $90. These kits are missing the test jar for the hydrometer, but if you use the bucket as a primary, then you don’t need the test jar. Also, if you were to use a wine kit to make wine, you would need bottles, which you could either buy or keep out of your recycling.

From this basic winemaking equipment kit, there are some upgrades available. Most upgrade the double lever corker to a floor corker, which then increase the price by $100, and maybe throw in a bottling bucket. Some will also offer a wine thief, which is useful, and a plastic paddle.

I could see that getting a funnel would also be very useful and not included in this kit.

Is the basic equipment kit worth it? Well, looking at Northern Brewer Homebrew Supply:

Northern Brewer Basic Kit with Glass Carboy - $119.99

• 7.9 gallon fermenter w/lid - $21.99 for the bucket and $6.99 for the lid
• 6 gallon glass carboy - $39.99
• Fermentation lock and bung - $1.10 for the airlock and $0.75 for the bung
• Sipon tubing – 5 ft x$0.35 per ft
• AutoSiphon - $8.99
• Bottle filler - $2.75
• Wine bottle brush - $2.75
• Carboy brush - $4.75
• Double lever corker - $24.99
• 30 9x1.75 corks - $4.99
• Hydrometer - $5.99
• 8 oz easy clean sanitizer - $7.50
• Instructions – not available separately, but usually can be found for free

Individually priced total - $135.28.

A savings of $15.29 to buy it as a kit. So buying a basic winemaking equipment kit is worth the savings.