Making Wine - Much Help Required!!

VonnyD

Hi

We have made our own beer and we would like to try making our own wine too.  Would it be OK to use our 40 pint bucket and 2 pressure barrels from the beer making kit or are we better to use demijohns instead of the pressure barrels? 

Thanks!!

 

HBO_Staff

This is something a few people have wondered about, whilst the fermenting vessel is the same and can be used for either, although it may stain, the pressure barrels are not really suitable for a couple of reasons. The wine is usually bottled which stops it coming into contact with air, but in a barrel you would have a large quantity of air in contact with wine in the barrel as the wine went down. Also to dispense the wine you need pressure, the barrel would have to be sealed to keep it clean and airtight, but that would stop the wine flowing out properly when you opened the tap as there would be no pressure inside the barrel, as it does not carbonate like beers and ciders do. It is probably not going to end up with good results, and you risk losing a whole batch of wine, so we would strongly recommend against using barrels for wine. It is always best to bottle it. If you're starting out there is a great kit which is on offer and comes with your choice of wine style from the very popular, high quality Cellar 7 range, a link to it is here for you to consider, the 30 bottle wine refill itself usually retails at £31.95 so the equipment works out very cheaply as part of the deal whilst it has a huge £20 off the usual price. It is a great way to get going, and means you start with a very good quality kit and equipment from the beginning, as even if you include the cost of the equipment it only works out at just over £2 a bottle for a quality of wine which would cost much more in any supermarket;

http://home-brew-online.myshopify.com/collections/all/products/home-brew-online-starter-equipment-pack-wine-30-bottle-kit-with-choice-of-wine

VonnyD

Hi HBO_Staff

Thanks so much for your helpful advice!  I will get my kit ordered up

:-)