{"id":27,"date":"2007-05-06T05:38:17","date_gmt":"2007-05-06T12:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wineintheshower.com\/?p=27"},"modified":"2010-02-27T10:24:14","modified_gmt":"2010-02-27T18:24:14","slug":"first-wine-kit-cabernet-merlot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/2007\/05\/06\/first-wine-kit-cabernet-merlot\/","title":{"rendered":"First Wine Kit: Cabernet-Merlot"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is difficult to decide where to start, because I like all varietals of wine.\u00a0 I prefer red wine, so I decided I should definitely get a red wine kit.\u00a0 I was getting a starter pack that included all of the equipment to make wine as well as a wine kit, and there were limited selections included in this option.\u00a0 I chose the Winexpert Selection Premium Cabernet-merlot.\u00a0 It sounded like a higher quality kit, and hopefully I\u2019d have a better chance at getting a drinkable wine.\u00a0 I had very low expectations, I looked at this as an experiment.\u00a0 Worse case, I wouldn\u2019t like the wine and wouldn\u2019t ever make any more.<\/p>\n

I got my kit, and it had all sorts of confusing parts in it.\u00a0 I sat down and tried to figure out what they were all for.<\/p>\n

Primary<\/a> fermentation bucket — name is description, this is where the first part of the fermentation happens<\/p>\n

Glass carboy — for secondary<\/a> fermentation and subsequent racking<\/a> stages for clearing<\/a> and stabilizing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Two-ended

Spoon<\/p><\/div>\n

Spoon \u2013 note the 2 different ends.\u00a0 The “spoon” side is useful for stirring up the juice of the wine kit with whatever water needs to be added for dilution, and for stirring in the bentonite<\/a>.\u00a0 The small end fits into the neck of a carboy (the spoon end will NOT).<\/p>\n

\"Thief\"

Winethief<\/p><\/div>\n

Plastic wine thief<\/a> \u2013 this thief has a cool mechanism that stops up wine at the end.\u00a0 The diameter of the thief is big enough to put a hydrometer<\/a> directly in for testing, which was very convenient.<\/p>\n

\n
\"autosiphon\"<\/dt>\n
autosiphon<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

Auto-siphon<\/a> \u2013 my husband was actually impressed with this.\u00a0 He had been using a plain siphon for his beer, where you have to suck on it to start it.\u00a0 The auto siphon is so easy, you just give it a few pumps and you don\u2019t have to get spit in your finished product.\u00a0 However, I found out you DO have to watch where the end of the hose goes while you\u2019re pumping, or it\u2019ll siphon all over your leg and the floor instead of into the carboy (oops)<\/p>\n

Bottle brush, for cleaning out bottles<\/p>\n

\"floor

floor corker<\/p><\/div>\n

Floor corker \u2013 I got the \u201cpremium\u201d starter kit, which had a floor corker instead of a hand corker.\u00a0 The hand corker looked a little scary to me, and so I actually went with the upgraded starter pack primarily because of the corker.\u00a0 The choice of kits included was also a factor, though.<\/p>\n

Easy clean sanitizer\/cleaner<\/p>\n

30 premium corks<\/p>\n

Buon Vino automatic gravity bottle filler<\/p>\n

I accidentally threw away the airlock, bung<\/a>, and hydrometer.\u00a0 Luckily, my hubby had all of these things from his beer brewing, so I could start without having to get new ones first.<\/p>\n

So, I got started.\u00a0 I opened the wine kit box, and there were several things inside much to my surprise \u2013 I expected it to just be a bag of juice.\u00a0 The kit included detailed instructions, a bag of oak chips, and several packets of chemicals to add \u2013 bentonite<\/a>, metabisuphite, sorbate<\/a>, and fining agent<\/a>, as well as a packet of yeast.\u00a0 I actually read through the instructions once first, then I braced myself.\u00a0 I figured if I was going to screw it up, I\u2019d do it right from the start.\u00a0 I diligently cleaned everything I would need, then got started.<\/p>\n

First, the bentonite<\/a> gets dissolved in warm water in the bucket.<\/p>\n

\"adding<\/p>\n

Next, you pour the wine into the bucket.\u00a0 This was not a pretty site, because the juice is quite heavy, and liquid tends to be wobbly.\u00a0 The box looked like it was meant to hold the juice while it was dispensed, so Ieft the bag in the box.\u00a0 Then I went to take the cap off of the bag.\u00a0 Hmmmm, it really doesn\u2019t want to come off.\u00a0 I ended up grabbing a butter knife and wrangling the cap off, which eventually\"filling went flying off of the bag.\u00a0 I picked up the box and poured the juice into the bucket, which splashed everywhere, and the bucket slid away from me as I poured, making an even bigger mess.\u00a0 But, I got most of it in the bucket, and then filled the bucket to 6 gallons with filtered water from the refridgerator.\u00a0 I had watched my hubby fill his beer, so I did what he did, and took a piece of tubing and ran it from the water dispensor into the bucket directly.<\/p>\n

I stirred it up well and took a specific gravity<\/a> reading \u2013 1.09.\u00a0 Perfect, the kit says it should be between 1.080 and 1.100.\u00a0 Finally, the oak chips got stirred in, and then the yeast was sprinkled on top.\u00a0 I put the lid on the bucket and waited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is difficult to decide where to start, because I like all varietals of wine.\u00a0 I prefer red wine, so I decided I should definitely get a red wine kit.\u00a0 I was getting a starter pack that included all of the equipment to make wine as well as a wine kit, and there were limited […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6,4,5,7],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1143,"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions\/1143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/docker.vsl:8080\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}