On 21 Feb 2005 19:36:28 -0800, wrote:

We tried some awesome blueberry wine the other day and now we want to
make our own wine. I see kits for order on the web, but dont know
which one is good to buy. I don't want a kit that comes with all the
juice you pour in and stuff, I want to crush the fruit, filter it out,
etc, etc. What's a good kit to get?

Greetings. I looked at this last week. There are two sets of
issues:

1) Equipment
2) Wine-making kits

The wine-making kits I saw for sale via the internet did not
include the equipment: they contain juice concentrate, yeast,
sulfides, and other stuff. There might be kits out there with the
equipment included, but I did not see them.

I am not at all convinced that one needs to buy any kind of "kit,"
be it equipment or juice concentrates.

From what I have gathered from reading two internet web sites
(such as http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/basics.asp) and the book
"Alaska Bootlegger's Bible," you can do what you want rather
inexpensively. Here is what I would do, and I will soon be doing
(see http://holysmoke.org/wwjd)

a) Buy a 9-gallon plastic kitchen trash can

b) freeze 14 pounds of fruit (blueberries, grapes, raisins,
oranges) then thaw it, and dump it into (a), then crush

c) boil three gallons of water

d) add 2.5 pounds granulated sugar to (c)

e) let (d) cool

f) dump it into (a), add yeast, two crushed Campdel tablets

g) cover (a) with a plastic trash bag and secure with rubber bands

h) let (g) ferment until bubbling subsides to a slow simmer

i) siphon (h) to a five-gallon water bottle, leaving residue

j) cap (i) and run a little hose from the cap to a jar of water to
act as an air lock (see http://holysmoke.org/wwjd)

k) wait 45 days

l) "rack" (i) to a second five-gallon water bottle, leaving
residue

m) wait 45 days

n) add two ounces of gelatin to (m) to clear the wine

o) wait ten days

p) bottle the wine

If you plan on using blueberries, you might also wish to add a
pound of raisins (for tannin) and an orange or three (for acid).

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