Making wine from a kit?

[jasie]

Has anyone here tried making their own wine from a kit? I've been getting inundated with ads from brewsy (https://getbrewsy.com) and it looks interesting.  Not sure if what they make is actually wine though? Google searches for it came up with ppl using it with mountain dew etc too! Just wondering if anyone here has tried it or anything like it with successful results.  

Edited December 2, 2021 by jasie (log)

[heidih]

Good grief. When you see keto and vegan as marketing buzzwords - think! So they picked all the insects off the grapes before crushing? lets just set some Welch's grape juice to ferment in a cool dark place... Then treat yourself to a winery tour and see the process, smell that primal scent of the process. 

[Anna N]

1 hour ago, jasie said:

Has anyone here tried making their own wine from a kit?

Years and years ago I helped my daughter and son-in-law undertake this task. It is not as easy as it is made to sound nor is it particularly economical. You would be better off reading some wine reviews and grabbing a few bottles of a well regarded wine that comes at a price such that you could afford to enjoy a bottle once or twice a month. YMMV 

[pastrygirl]

5 hours ago, jasie said:

Not sure if what they make is actually wine though? Google searches for it came up with ppl using it with mountain dew etc too!

I think that counts as wine if you're in prison 🙃

[jasie]

4 hours ago, heidih said:

Good grief. When you see keto and vegan as marketing buzzwords - think! So they picked all the insects off the grapes before crushing? lets just set some Welch's grape juice to ferment in a cool dark place... Then treat yourself to a winery tour and see the process, smell that primal scent of the process. 

I saw that too!! They claim you can make keto friendly wine with only 1g of sugar....  so so so many doubts. LOL.

[jasie]

20 minutes ago, pastrygirl said:

I think that counts as wine if you're in prison 🙃

Nothing like prison hooch I guess. LOL. 

[blue_dolphin]

6 hours ago, jasie said:

Has anyone here tried making their own wine from a kit? I've been getting inundated with ads from brewsy (https://getbrewsy.com) and it looks interesting.

 

I think I remember @Shelbymentioning that they'd tried a DIY wine experiment a long time ago.  Not sure if it was a kit like this or something different.  I do not believe it was a success.  I think Nyquil was mentioned to describe the flavor. 

[Shelby]

23 minutes ago, blue_dolphin said:

 

I think I remember @Shelbymentioning that they'd tried a DIY wine experiment a long time ago.  Not sure if it was a kit like this or something different.  I do not believe it was a success.  I think Nyquil was mentioned to describe the flavor. 

100% correct.  It was awful.  I still have bottles downstairs in case of a renewing of Prohibition, but even then, I'm not sure I could choke it down.

[IndyRob]

I guess I'm doing both ends of the spectrum this year.  My grape vines finally yielded enough grapes for 7 bottles of wine  I plan on opening a bottle on New Year's Eve, so I don't know yet if I have a decent wine.  This is a pretty small batch so I needed some smaller bottles for secondary fermentation.  A couple of 96oz apple juice bottles were just the ticket. 

 

But then I had to do something with the apple juice.  So I made some hard cider.  The results were quite okay.  I've never had any hard cider before so I don't have any comparison.  But I like it at least as well as domestic beer.  I've done a few more batches since with cheap apple juice and doing things like carmelizing the sugar, adding yeast nutrient and adding pectic enzyme to clarify it.  I highly recommend it for someone wanting to try out home fermenting.

 

The thing is, you don't need a $30 kit.  At minimum, you need a bottle of apple juice ($0.99-$1.50), and part of a packet champagne yeast ($0.70-$1.40).  A little more sugar will raise the ABV to the normal 5-6% for hard cider (the champagne yeast is happy to eat table sugar).  Yeast nutrient is not necessary, but is cheap.  So is the pectic enzyme.

 

I suspect that what this brewsy company is doing is packaging some or all of these cheap ingredients into a packet and charging $30 for it.  I might be wrong, but I don't see anything more than that in their ads..

 

ETA: My local home brew shop takes reservations in the fall for many varieties of proper grape juice for wine.

Edited December 2, 2021 by IndyRob (log)

[cdh]

My local homebrew store gets 6 gallon buckets of grape juice in from various parts of the world around harvest time.  I've fermented a goodly number of them over the years. I find that the "let nature take its course" methodology makes pretty OK results when the initial material is good.  That means stuff the buckets in the basement and let them fizz and ferment with the yeast they came infected with.  Some wines would have benefited from adjusting the acidity at the beginning... came out flat and flabby tasting... others did not.  

 

I did one of the concentrated juice kits once, and it was fine too... not too onerous, though it did need yeast added, as it had been sterilized when it was concentrated and packaged.  

[cdh]

It seems to me that Brewsy is trading on the inexperience of its target market. They seem to be selling yeast packets and labels and gallon jugs.  You do need stuff like that to make wine... but it is not all you need to make wine.