Let me start out with saying I love wine; it tastes amazing, brings people together, and allows for good conversation and good times. I haven't brewed anything... until now. I've always had an interest in making beer since my friend did it in high school. Over the years, I've run into people who brew their own beer which gave me the feeling of "I Must Do This." My decision to brew wine first rather than beer stems from my love of wine. That and wine takes a lot longer before it's ready to drink. Plus, once I finish brewing my first batch of wine, I only need about 2 additional pieces to start brewing beer. That's a win/win in my book. I must also preface this by saying I have already consumed/collected about 40 bottles of wine. I like the fact that for my first batch of wine, I will be reusing bottles I have personally consumed as well as will give it an eclectic feeling with the different shapes, sizes and colors.
So one Saturday, I started driving towards Mission Viejo and once again saw O’Shea Brewing Company right off my freeway exit. I've always wanted to stop and check it out, but never did. Since I had nothing to do that day, I took a right instead of a left and pulled into the driveway. $200 later, I left with a basic wine kit (the brewing tools) and a wine kit (4.5 gallons of grape juice). Jeff, who helped me at O'Shea's, told me that many of the wine kits they stock, have won medals at the Orange and Los Angeles county fairs. He also claimed that the quality of these wines, related to store prices, is equivalent to $15-$20 bottles. I'm thinking to myself, "OMG, I'm going to brew my own great quality wine and it's going to be awe... wait for it... some!
The Basic Wine Making Kit includes:
6.5 Plastic Primary fermentation bucket with lid
6.5 Gal Glass Carboy
25 Corks
Manual Corker
Hydrometer
Bottle and carboy brush
Air lock
Plastic stopper for both vessels
Campden Tables - Sanitizer
Siphon with auto racker
The Wine Kit:
Celebration del Mondo - Chilean Cabernet Merlot by Advintage
(http://www.advintage.ca/english/home_page/frameset.html )
Additionally, I purchased a long plastic spoon for $8, 2 x PBW (a cleaner) $2 a pack and a 5 gallon bucket from Home Depot, to hold my sanitized water.
Day 1 - Sunday March 7th, 2010
I sort out everything and open the wine kit. Inside are instructions on how to brew their wine. It appears to be as easy as baking a cake. We shall see.
Primary fermentation:
1) Clean and sanitize all tools.
So I wash my hands and take the Home Depot bucket, rinse it out and add about 2 gallons of warm tap water. There were no instructions on the back of the campden tablets pack so I googled it. It says to use 1 crushed tablet to 1 gallon of water. I had about 2 gals (eyeballed) so I crushed 2 tablets and mixed.
Now at this point, I'm only going off what Jeff told me to do; Use the campden tablets to sanitize my equipment.
I put all my tools into the bucket of sanitizer and let them sit for 15 mins or so. I cleaned off my kitchen counter, wiped it down with anti bacterial 409, dried then sprayed sanitizer from a spray bottle. Dried off and put down some paper towels. Put all my tools on the counter. I then put half of the sanitizer liquid into my primary fermentation bucket and splashed it around for a while. Drained it, now I’m ready to rock and roll.
2) Mix one cup of boiling water and add woodchips.
This is to sterilize the wood chips as well as extract their essence, I'm just guessing. I must tell you, the smell of these wood chips activated my nasal senses because all of a sudden I was able to isolate that smell and match it what it tastes like in the wine I drink. I ran over to my wife and told her to smell what the Barco is cooking. She was underwhelmed.
3) Add 2 gallons of warm water to primary fermenter and add packet # 1, Bentonite (which is clay).
Okay, at this point I have 2.5 gallon of room temp arrowhead water. I thought to myself, how the hell am I going to warm this up? I put about a half gallon in my electric water boiler. I didn't want to put boiling water so I stopped it in about 30-45 seconds. I poured that in and don't see any steam telling me it’s not hot. Crap, I soak my hands in the sanitizer then felt the water. It wasn’t even luke warm, Oh well. I add the clay regardless and started to stir. Now I had no idea what to expect even after watching a number of youtube videos on making these wine kits. I stir and stir and stir. Yeah, apparently the clay doesn't mix that well in mildly almost warm water so I put more water in my boiler, about a cup or 2, let it boil and dump it in. At this point I don't think the clay has clumped together but it's not completely dissolved either. I forge on!
4) Add in the 4.5 gallons of succulent grape juice, a gift from the gods.
Alright, the fun part. After fighting to get the cap off for about 3mins, the juice starts a flowing. I partook in a tasting and guess what? It tasted exactly like grape juice, shocking.
5) Top off the primary fermenter to 6 gallons.
Now my primary fermentation bucket only has marks up to 4.5 gallons. I measure them so I can make a 6 gallon marking and the got damn gallon markings are all different sizes!!?!?! I don't have a gallon of milk or any large containers to measure from and I’m sure as hell not going to measure out 6 gallons, 2 cups at a time, so I eyeball it. I take the first gal marker to the second gal marker which to my calculations, comes out to be about 2 and3/4th of an inch per gallon. Nice. I mark that up, top it off and start stirring.
6) Pitch your yeast yo!
Open packet of yeast, sprinkle. Done and Done.
7) Seal it up
Self explanatory.
8) Take a Hydrometer measurement
The instructions say it should read between 1.090 and 1.075.
Reading - 1.081, Check. And btw, it’s hard to read the hydrometer with wine foam blocking your view.
9) Add rubber stopper and airlock
Once again, the airlock did not come with instructions so I used my powers of deduction to get it working. I noticed a fill line on the side. I filled it with sanitizing liquid up to the fill line. Then put the plastic buoy on, then the lid. Slammed the airlock down on the stopper and KAPOW, wine making has commenced.
Here is the wine kit I purchased.
Right after I pitched the yeast.
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