So this is my first attempt at making wine from home. After doing some research and learning about the equipment and products that I need, I decided to try making my first batch from a kit. There are a plethora of different starter kits and juice kits out there to choose from. I settled on a winemaking equipment kit and juice kit from Quality Wine and Ale Supply, an online home brewing retailer. And, because I have been drinking some Shiraz lately, I bought a juice kit from Vintners Reserve, your basic run-of-the-mill home winemaking kit suppliers.
The kit I bought came with everything I need to start the process, with the exception of the bottles, which I am able to get from local restaurants. The Vintners Shiraz kit will make approximately 6 gallons (30 x 750ml bottles) of finished wine and is expected to take around 8-10 weeks.
My first task was to sanitize everything, which according to everything I’ve read, is critically important. So, I used a cleaned-out gallon milk jug and the sanitizing solution that came with the kit. The sanitizer is an oxidizer and does not need to be rinsed out, which is very nice.  Using the milk jug and hot tap water seems to do the trick.
I had to “vigorously” stir in ”Package #1″, the bentonite. The bentonite tended to clump up and required some work to get it completely dissolved.  The instructions tell you to start the primary fermentation process by adding the juice and required ingredients (from the kit) into a 6 gallon “primary fermenter” that came with the kit; more or less, an oversized paint bucket. The instructions stated that the juice had to be around 75F which was hard to reach in a 65F house. I first added hot water, which brought the temp to 80F – too hot.  I took the primary fermenter (oversized paint bucket designed for 6 gallons of wine) outside to cool. I also did not have the proper test jar/tube to test the specific gravity. I rigged a 1 litre flavored water bottle as a substitute so I could take a sample reading of the SG.  That was a pain because I had to siphon the juice from the primary to the bottle…and it is just messy. Now I know why everyone invests in a “wine thief” to test their must. Â
Finally got the temperature of the juice to around 75F at around 4:30pm and added the yeast.  Using the water bottle and the hydromter (instrument that measures the buoyancy of the juice - aka the sugar content), I measured an intial SG reading of 1.074 @70F. So far, everything has been according to the instructions.
When I was putting the lid on the primary fermenter, and pushing the airlock (allows air to escape, but not to enter) through the rubber gasket in the lid, I pushed too hard and the rubber gasket fell into the juice. I took the lid back off, tried finding the rubber gasket, and couldn’t because of the dark color of the juice. Oh well. I left the rubber gasket in the juice (shouldn’t hurt) and taped the airlock to the lid instead. It seems to be holding.
I clearly need to get a long plastic spoon, a proper test jar, a wine thief, and maybe some replacement gaskets. I will check back on the primary fermentation in a few days.