On Jan 18, 11:07 am, Doug wrote:
Tom -
This is a Limited Edition kit - about as good as they get from
WinExpert. I have a lot of respect for Jack Keller's winemaking
skills, but his area of expertise is really fruits / vegetables /
native grape varieties, not state-of-the-art kits. The extended
instructions originated with Ed Goist and were posted in 2000, based
on Ed's experiences in prior years. But state of the art in wine kits
has changed a lot in the past years, even since the 1990's.

I tend to agree with two aspects of the extended instructions. First,
once wine is under airlock, there isn't really any firm timetable for
when various things have to happen. Don't feel obliged to rush the
wine into bottles by the end of week 6. Second, everybody I've ever
heard of who has used Stavin oak products has raved about them. If
you are into big oak in red wines, you might well want to add some
Stavin cubes (or replace some of the kit oak "dust" with cubes). On
the other hand, I have read a lot of Tim Vandergrift's posts about all
the research and testing that goes into the WE kits. I won't say they
can't be improved upon, but the WE folks go to a lot of trouble to
make the results as good as can be, with a reasonable level of effort
by the winemaker. Your odds are slim (IMHO) of improving on their
results by things like adding the bentonite after fermentation, or
fermenting in a carboy instead of a bucket, or adding generic "grape
tannin" or rehydrating the yeast the "proper" way instead of following
the "sprinkle and walk away" instructions.

I've done a number of WE Limited Edition kits, and I've been impressed
with nearly all of them. Some of the reds in particular don't really
come into their own for 18 to 24 months, but when they do, they are
fabulous. Since this is your one chance to do this kit, I think your
best bet is to follow the instructions reasonably closely. That is my
two cents -- as always, free advice is worth at least what you pay for
it . . .

Doug

Doug,
I'll defer to you since I don't make kit wine but am a bit intrigued
by them supplying 'oak dust' for a premium level kit. I find dust to
taste like it looks, like sawdust. Everything you add or do to wine
in process affects the taste to some degree in my experience. It
sounds like it goes in early so that mellows it out but it's still low
end product as far as I am concerned. I think chips/beans are far
superior to dust, the staves and spirals seem to make sense too. Oak
is a very 'personal taste' thing and does recede with time but that
sound like one area where they left room for improvement, at least to
me. I like your idea of using beans over dust.

It's not possible to make great wine from mediocre ingredients but it
pretty easy to make mediocre wine from great ingredients so your
advice to stay close to the process outlined by the mfg makes a lot of
sense, they want you to buy more. I never use oak dust on anything;
even vinegar- which just loves oak.

Joe