Couple questions

I just got a deluxe beer kit and a deluxe wine kit. I started on the wine first…

  • The recipe kit says the temperature should be around 72-76. This is hard for my house in winter. My fermometer says the barrel is 68 degrees. I do have activity in the airlock…a bubble of air every 10-20 seconds. Is this an okay temp to keep things at?

  • The recipe kit says to stir the wine once a day. This seems high risk for contamination. I suppose they want more oxygen in the mix for the yeasties? I sanitized my stirrer and went ahead and removed the lid and stirred. Then resealed the lid. How vigorously should I stir and for how long? Should I not stir at all as long as I have activity? After stirring activity stopped, but I assume this is because removing the lid released all the pressure and I won’t see the airlock active again until pressure builds up inside the fermentor.

How often should I check the gravity of the wine? Every day? After the first week? My original gravity was 1.081 which is correct for the recipe’s range, I believe.

Well, it’s really cranking now. Bubbling through the airlock every 2-3 seconds consistently. How often should I change out the airlock liquid?

Hey man,

I haven’t made wine yet so I can’t answer all your questions, but I will say that you don’t want to be pulling samples for gravity readings every day. That would be a waste of the wine/must. Your next gravity readings should be taken when fermentation appears to be over, or when the instructions say fermentation should be over. Take the gravity readings a couple days apart and make sure the gravity is no longer dropping. This will confirm that fermentation is over.

Regarding your other questions, I’d recommend re-posting your questions in the Winemaking section of the forum. You’ll probably get more help there. It’s mostly beer nerds perusing the General section.

Which wine kit specifically are we talking about? Could make a difference.

I’d say 68 is a tad on the cool side, but you should be ok. Might have a little lag time when the wine needs to clear out, but fermentation should work. If you have any issues at the end, I’d advise a brew belt, but at 68* it is worthwhile waiting to see what happens first.

You don’t have to take readings daily. Depending on the kit, you probably do not have to stir daily either.

Assuming we are dealing with a fairly standard kit, you are probably fine waiting one week, then rack, then wait one or two weeks, then taking a couple readings to make sure it is finished.

Stir daily as the directions say. Theres sulfites already in the must that’ll protect the wine, and once its fermented out you add more.

Get a Brew Belt or use a heating pad to bump up the temp a bit, but 68F won’t hurt anything it just might take an extra day or so.

I really only check the gravity when it quits bubbling. At that point it sahould be under 1.000, maybe as low as 0.990.

I’ve probably made 40 wine kits now and never had to throw one out.

I’m not so concerned about contamination myself. I just have never seen any real advantage in daily stiring. I do tend to stir almost daily when dealing with grape skins, but even then, I’m really not convinced that it has improved the wine or aided fermentation in any way.

That being said, I don’t see any harm that can come from stiring it. And in most cases I would tend to go along with what the kit maker suggests - as long as it makes sense.

I’ve got a Winexpert Stag’s Leap Merlot kit. It does have a bag of grape skins in there and I’ve been stirring once daily with a sanitized stirring paddle. The fermentation is ripping along, so I’m going to let it stay at the current temp even though it might be a bit low. Your responses have made me less concerned about this. Thanks!

You have bentonite and some solids that drop out of the juice, and skins material if its a skins kit. Stirring keeps the sludgy stuff that would otherwise settle to the bottom from going anaerobic and generating sulfide. Not saying it would happen every time but the stirring is in the instructions for a reason.

I get the theory behind it and it makes sense to be sure. But I can say from experience that not stirring would make absolutely no difference in the finished wine. I have worked in the kit industry for over 5 years and have probably fermented over 10 000 kits.

Having talked to reps from various kit companies, stiring is definately not on thier radar as a major concern.

Sounds like you already know what you are doing. With the Eclipse kits, I usually let them sit a little longer in all phases to clear out properly. Lots of extra solid material that needs to drop out.

This is an excellent kit and will end up being a nice wine. Excellent choice!

I know this is an old topic but wanted to mention some experience I have had with grapes skins. I have brewed 4 batches of stags leap merlot with grape skins. For the record, the instructions say to punch down the skins daily. While not explained, this is because they are loaded with sugar and the byproduct of fermentation, carbon dioxide, causes them to float. Floating and all the CO2 likely decreases extraction efficiency. What I have found out is that if I wash the skins in the open muslin bag with the water kit calls for to get to 6 gallon mark, my skin bags have less of a tendency to float. This last batch I got crazy and rinsed by putting the open muslin bag in a collander and adding make up water, stirring the skin slurry, then letting the sack drain. I repeated this numerous times and then put the now tied bag in make up water and squeezed the rinse water out of it then let it go back in. Lotsa rinsing and repeating. Not surprisingly, the OG went up when I rinsed skins. Reminded me of brew in a bag where I am always lifting bag out as well as stirring and go through an elaborate rinse on the bag as well. This last time the bag has stayed at the bottom so far. Normally would have been floating by now.

I did this because I only have 3 days not a week to punch the bags down…have to visit grandkids :). Anyone every here of over squeezing the skins and getting too much astringency? I know to watch out for this with brew in a bag. Darn I should have checked the pH of the rinse water…bet it is substantially lower with wine than beer thus dramatically decreasing phenolic solubility…will do for next batch :slight_smile:

I don’t do wine kits but with fresh grapes you let them float then punch down daily for oxygen uptake and release the juice. You press after about a week. Doing a quick turnover kit it might just be easier to add some acid blend and raisons or dried cuurrants