Making wine from a kit is the best way for craft winemakers to discover unique varietals from regions around the world that are not usually accessible. With kits, the science behind producing a great wine has been taken care of, while the art of making great wines is in your hands. Although wine kits are designed to be user-friendly, new and even experienced winemakers can occasionally hit a few bumps along the way. Here are some of our tips for making great wine with Winexpert wine kits!
Tips for Winexpert Wine Kits
Follow the Home Vintner’s updated instructions and not the updated instructions in the kit. If you follow the kit instructions, you could be stabilizing too soon.- We replace the bentonite in all our kits. The bentonite that comes with the kits, is a large 30-gram bag of coarse, rock-like stuff! It is very difficult to dissolve. Our replacement pack is 15 grams of fine bentonite presenting no difficulty in dissolving.
- Water. If you’re using tap water, make sure it is not connected to a water softener. Water softened water is fine for cleaning and sanitizing, but NOT in your wine kit. We always use bottled water (reverse osmosis) that we get from our Olds satellite location, and we carry it at the Calgary store as well. Your choice!
- Using our primary with a snug-fitting lid and a bung and airlock gives an airtight seal. This means you are not losing the esters of the wine. It will also prevent those pesky little fruit flies from getting in your wine!
- Minimize the time in the primary, but the extra time in the carboy can work wonders. Many customers choose to bulk age in the carboy for a few months. If you are bulk aging, make sure your airlock never runs dry!
- Sanitizing with a good quality cleaner/sanitizer is essential. Everything that touches your wine must be sanitized. Also, very important, is to rinse. Some cleaners claim to be No-Rinse, but we still recommend rinsing these products. If you don’t it can leave a film and a taint on your wine. Never, ever use bleach. Even after rinsing, bleach still leaves a film.
- Your specific gravity target is .990 for completed fermentation. Always use your hydrometer and not the number of days before you stabilize. If you stabilize before .990 is reached, you will be bottling a sweeter, out-of-balance wine. What a downer if you expected to savour a lovely, dry Malbec or crisp Pinot Grigio!
- Patience, patience, patience is the key. Don’t rush the process. It’s worth the wait!
- Corks. Use quality corks for storage. Poor-quality corks cannot maintain the integrity of your wine.
- Start with quality ingredients, as found in all our Winexpert wine kits. No amount of tips can make a good wine, without this right at the start.
Reach out to the experts at Home Vintner for all your wine-making needs.
