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.

Making Wine from a Kit at a Winery

A good friend of my husband’s recently wrote me to tell me that a Classic Winemakers in Lacey, WA was having a good sale to make your own wine. There was a bit of confusion at first as to why I was uninterested in this.

See, a place like Classic Winemakers who offer to let you make wine there are using wine kits. Once you have selected what to make, they then make the wine for you using their equipment at their facilities. In my post about wine kits, I said that to buy the equipment to make a wine kit at home costs about $100, but in using their store, you wouldn’t have to buy that equipment. Plus, you don’t have to know how to make wine, as they will do all the labor for you. All you have to do is show back up, pick out a label, and they will give you a finished bottled wine custom made for you from a wine kit.

These type of wineries are not for me because I do have the equipment, and I do want the experience of making the wine myself. However, if someone wanted a custom wine but didn’t want to deal with all the details, this would be very ideal for them.

I know of at least two other wineries who operate like this. One is Bader Winery in Vancouver, WA, and the other is Cork This! in Texas.

Wine Kits

vineyard to give you the grapes to crush and press. This means that one month you could make a cabernet and the next month a Riesling all from the comfort of your home.

According to “Wine Kits: Save Money, Make Wine” written by Tim Vandergrift and published in the October-Novermber 2009 issue of Wine Maker Magazine (article not available online), making wine from kits is much more economical than buying wine. After spending $100 on wine making equipment that can be reused, the cost of the wine kit can break down into about $2-$7 a bottle. However, the savings is in that that same wine would retail for about $6-20 a bottle. Vandergrift shows how that can really add up, saying:

the example I use is about three bottles per week, yielding 156 bottles per year, with a built in factor of about 20% for wine-related emergencies bringing it up to around 180 bottles per year, or six 6-gallon batches, covering red, white, rosé, and dessert wines… your total cost is roughly $100 (equipment) and $600 for kits, for a total of $700 for 180 bottles which works out to $3.88/bottle.

He gives another example for weddings:

Caterers will tell you to budget ½ to 2/3 of a bottle of wine per person, depending on the nature of the invitees… and the time of day of the reception. If you’re inviting 200 people you’re going to need between 100 and 135 bottles of wine. If you were planning on spending $15-$20 per bottle, the tab would be between $1,500 and $2,700! And you wouldn’t get customized labels and capsules color-coordinated with your bridesmaid dresses (lavender taffeta is just so dreamy!)

Running the numbers makes producing your own wine for an event like this very attractive. Five kits at $120 each, with capsules, custom labels (or DIY for the personal touch) and you’re going to spend under $750 all-in – less than what you would have otherwise.

One other thing to note on the economic front is that you are buying grape juice, and is therefore not subject to any alcohol tax because it is not yet alcohol. That is also savings.

Of course, the last reason for using a kit is pride. It is a good feeling to think, “I made this.”

Admittedly, I have not made grape wine from a kit yet, but after listening to Vandergrift give a presentation at the Wine Maker Conference I attended, I am very tempted to.

Some Wine Kit Manufacturers:

• Winexpert
  
• Cellar Craft
  
• RJ Spagnols

Also, RJ Spangnols has a label called Vinoka, which makes cider kits, and about any homebrew supply store will have a mead making kit.

Book Review: The Compleat Meadmaker

Yes, my spell check is going bonkers on that title, but the book is indeed named The Compleat Meadmaker: Home Production of Honey Wine from Your First Batch to Award-Winning Fruit and Herb Variations by Ken Schramm, published in 2003. This is the number one recommended book about mead, but some of that is because there aren’t many out there dedicated strickly to mead, and this one is the newest.

Part One of this book goes though the history of honey and mead, including the decline and recent resergance of mead. He talks briefly about styles of meads, and then he finally moves on Part Two, the Process.

Learning how to make mead in Part 2 starts with a shopping trip to get equipment and supplies, of which a recipe is then presented. He then sort of goes though the process with the recipe so that you are learning though doing, and he explains along the way. However, there are some things I think he glosses over that should have gotten more attention in the general introduction process. For instance, he says that if the mead is clear and there has been no fermentation for two weeks, it is okay to bottle, though he usually ages for at least six months. Most people I talk to who make mead say that mead is undrinkable unless it has been aged, so he really should have broken this out into an “Aging” step.

Next, he moves into a little more advanced ideas, such as note taking, heat’s influence on mead, sulfites, making sparkling mead, more advanced equipment, and additives such as acids. This section is followed up by a lot of science about the actual fermentation, such as fermentation phases, flocculation, nutrient levels, pH levels, and various issues regarding yeasts. Admittedly, the last part drove me a little bonkers because with wine and cider, there is definitely pH zone to be in, which is controlled by the addition of acids, and I couldn’t get a straight answer out of this book about what that zone might be for mead. This is probably the primary reason I haven’t really made mead. It wasn’t until I recently took a class and asked flat out what the pH should be that I found out mead makers don’t care about pH as it will fluctuate during ferment. They will finally measure when it comes time to bottle, at which point it should be in the same zones as wine for taste and stability reasons. I wish he had said that plainly instead of scientifically.

He goes on to talk about fermentation issues before moving on to conditioning, aging, and using oak. Thing is, I’m not sure how many beginners would read that section, as it would probably be the more advanced people who do, so there should have been a quick summary back in the basics of making mead.

In Part Three – Ingredients, Schramm begins by talking about bees, beekeeping, making honey, honey properties, and varietal honeys with a chart of scientific properties. This is followed by chapters on fruits and melomels, grapes and pyment, spices and metheglin, and grains and braggots. Again, I wonder how much of this is initially skipped by the reader, only to be read when the reader is more comfortable making mead.

Finally, in Part Four, does Schramm get to the recipes, which is contained on eight pages out of a 200 page book. Honestly, I would probably use Making Wild Wines and Meads to gain more recipes.

Next, he writes about how to appreciate mead, including glassware, temperature, evaluation, a brief section on hosting a mead tasting.

The appendix includes ten pages of just honey suppliers, wine and meadmaking suppliers, websites of interest, conversion charts, glossary, a large bibliography, and an index.

Overall, this can be an intimidating book, and it kept me from really going out there and making mead. However, it is highly recommended by mead makers, and I think the technical information would be good once a person has a few mead batches made. It is lacking in recipes, probably because he figures you will be creative and create your own recipes after reading all the technical information, so I recommend Got Mead.com or Making Wild Wines and Meads to supplement this shortcoming.

Mead Review: Mountain Meadow Moonlight Magic Mead

I have had Mountain Mead Meads before at various beer festivals. The first time was at the Holiday Ale Festival and again more recently at the Portland International Beer Fest.

When I found out that my mother had never had a mead, I went to my local grocery store hoping to find some, and was surprised that I found three. It was in the port section, also grouped with the sweet dessert wines like ice wines and muscats, all of which I like. I bought Mountain Meadow Moonlight Magic Semi-Sweet Mead.

When I was drinking it a few nights ago, wondering how to describe it, it came to me that this was very much like drinking a slightly sweet Chardonnay wine, as it kind of had a buttery feel for it. I agree with the labeling that it is only a semi-sweet or a medium sweet, as it is a mild sweetness that doesn’t overpower the palate.

Looking at their website, I see that my description actually fits with their goals when they made it, as they said it was inspired by semi-sweet white wines. I think they succeeded wonderfully.

Got Mead?

Mead, like cider, is a growing industry. Check out Got Mead.com. This website has a plethora of information regarding mead, including meaderies, recipes, and other information. It is quite the website.

Some meaderies to check out and try:

• Beowulf Mead
  
• Blacksnake Meadery
  
• Chaucer's Mead - sold with a little pouch of mulling spices.
• Fair Winds Mead
  
• Honeyrun Winery - they do a lot of meads and fruit wines that are blended together
• Iqhilika Mead - they have a chili mead
• Meadow Vista Honey Wines
  
• Mountain Meadows Mead - they come to several regional festivals
• New Day Meadery - they post up YouTube videos that are kind of interesting, ranging from bees to their latest product and steps in between.
• Rabbit’s Foot Meadery - besides mead, they also do cyser and braggots
• Redstone Meadery - comes in a blue bottle, and I really like their juniper mead
• Sky River Mead

You may have to go to a specialty beer or wine store to find mead, but also check the Port section in wine at in your local grocery store.

As far as finding honey to make mead, start with your local farmer’s market. Also, you might be able to find local honey via associations. For instance, Washington State Beekeepers Association is broken down into regional clubs. There is also a National Honey Board that has a Honey Locator website that lets you search by type of honey or by state.

One other thing I should mention about drinking mead or any alcoholic beverage with honey in it is that it gives horrible hangovers, so be careful with this stuff.

Choosing Honey for Making Mead

Honey is made by bees collecting flower nectar from flowers, mixing it with a few enzymes, and then sealing it in wax. This process actually makes honey very stable, as it will not ferment or mold unless water is added. Honey will sometimes crystallize, but it is still very usable.

If a hive is placed in an area where there is predominately one type of plant flowering at that time with a few weed exceptions, beekeepers are allowed to call the honey a single variety honey by the name of the plant. Therefore, if a hive is placed in an apple orchard, and the beekeeper believes the honey to be made out of at least 80% apple flower nectar, then the honey can be called apple honey. However, if that guarantee cannot be met, they honey will usually be labeled as wildflower honey, or not labeled at all.

At last weekend’s mead class, they had about 30 different jars honey, in which we got to taste by dipping toothpicks into the jars. I have to say, pumpkin honey was probably my favorite, as it had a little bit of spice to it. I didn’t care for chestnut, as it seemed a bit bitter to me.

So what honeys make the best mead? The first rule is to taste the honey. If it doesn’t taste good, it won’t make a good mead. After that, fruit honeys are pretty good with the exception of melons, which can give off sulfur. We were told to stay away from maple honey, and pine honey apparently creates off flavors such as menthol. We were also told that buckwheat in general does not make a good mead. I tasted the dark colored buckwheat honey, and it was very malty, but they had a second Eastern Oregon honey that was much lighter in color and tasted very different that they said made a good mead. So this proves that there are exceptions to the rule and reinforces that the honey should be tasted first. However, they did suggest that the darker buckwheat honey could be good if blended with other honey to tone it down while perking another honey up.

In the case of the two buckwheat honeys tasting different, according to Honey.com, “the darker the honey, the more apt it is to taste stronger and more robust. The lighter colored honeys are usually more delicate and sweeter in flavor.”

They told us that orange blossom honey and fireweed honey make some very good mead, and recommend it for beginners. I have seen a lot of orange blossom honey from the homebrew stores, but never fire weed. Also, I usually see clover honey in the grocery stores, which makes a decent mead.

After my class, I went down to my local Saturday farmer’s market to see what I could turn up there. Again, I found orange blossom honey which is imported to this region, and clover honey. I also turned up blackberry honey, which I realized to be a lighter milder honey than the other varieties. Still, it tasted good and would probably make a decent mead while supporting my local region.