Wine Making
This is something I want to try someday, maybe someday soon. I want to try this approach to get started - it looks cheap and it's supposed to produce a pretty good wine.
Equipment
- Primary Fermenter: Just a bucket, $30 / 3
- Glass Carboy: $38
- Bung and Airlock: $10
- Hoses $6.25
- Hydrometer & jar: $6
- Corker $12
Starting Cost: $102
Materials
- Sulphites
- yeast
- juice
- sugar
- bottles
- corks
- Campden / potassium metabisulfite
Notes
Look at the price per volume in bottles.
It looks like roughly a 1:4 ratio of juice to water.
Look into using frozen fruit. Watermelon wine looks good. Orange wine. Actually, some pumpkin wine recipes look good (with raisins and cinnamon). Beet wine. Lemon.
Also, look into freeze distilling in the winter.
With our water, I'll want to use a charcoal filter.
For more alcohol look for "high gravity" wine or yeast. When using it, add sugar slowly over several hours while it's fermenting.
Grapes
All the grape juices I've found (at least so far) that are intended for wine-making are highly marked up. I'd like to try making it from grapes. I could do a few batches over the late summer as various types are available.
Beer
I should also make some beer for Lauren.
Malted barley looks like it costs around $2.50/lb and around 2.5lbs/gal. Hops run around $20/lb but only a few oz are needed for a few gallons.