Bell's Beer finally branches out into wine

I was very kindly given a wine starter kit for my birthday. However, what with getting the beer going, setting up The Brewery, and then all the boiler problems, I haven't had chance to get the kit out and have a good look at it, never mind actually get some wine going. Finally today, I found myself with enough time, and the house to myself, so I got all the wine gear out to inspect it.

This kit included:

• a 5 litre PET plastic demijohn


• a gromit


• an air lock


• a 1.2 metre syphoning tube


• a syphon tap


• a small container of steriliser


• 6 tapered corks

The birthday present also included a 6 bottle Beaverdale Merlot kit.



The wine kit contained:

• a large bag of grape juice


• oak chippings


• yeast


• stabiliser


• kieselsol


• chitosan

I started by measuring 4.5 litres of water into the demijohn and marking this level. I them moved onto the all important sanitising, soaking the demijohn and top, gromit, airlock, as well as my measuring jug, hydrometer and thermometer. I also boiled the kettle to give a supply of clean, warm water. Ten minutes later I rinsed everything thoroughly with cold tap water. I opened the grape juice bag and poured it into the demijohn, before filling the bag with warm water and pouring that into the demijohn too. (All the warm water I used came by filling the measuring jug half with the cold tap and half from the boiled kettle.) I continued to fill the demijohn with warm water until it was just above the 4.5 litre fill level. I then placed the top on, covered the hole with my finger and shook the wine vigorously. The instructions stated that if the wine was fulled mixed it would have a gravity of 175-180. On inspection, the gravity was around 155. I was concerned given I had shaken the wine considerably already, but I shook it for a further minute, and a second reading showed the gravity at around 178.

Before I could add any further ingredients the temperature of the wine had to be between 20 and 25 degrees C. Using the thermometer, I found it was around 22 degrees C, so I continued with the instructions. I added the optional but recommended oak chippings. As someone who likes a Merlot with a deep oaky flavour, this was a no brainer. I was surprised to find the sachet marked oak chippings basically contained course saw dusk. I'm not sure what I expected, but sprinkling this into my wine seemed strange. After stirring in the oak chippings using the thermometer, I added the final ingredient - the yeast. I placed the top back on the demijohn, covered the hole again with my finger and gave it a good shake. I then filled the airlock with water so that the lower 'ball' on each side was filled with water, and inserted it tightly into the hole in the demijohn top.



Thats it. Job done. I wrapped a warm tea towel around the demijohn to try to keep the heat in for as long as possible and placed it in the corner of The Brewery. The instructions recommend a room temperature of 20 degrees C and not less. As discussed previously The Brewery temperature is more like 18 degrees C, but having already researched this topic, it seems this should be ok - only time will tell.

The wine should take around 3 weeks to ferment (though I wouldn't be surprised if it took longer in the cooler conditions). The aim will be for a gravity of 990 to 994, and less than one bubble per minute going through the airlock. I am looking forward to the feedback I should get from having the airlock - hopefully being able to watch bubbles pass through it fairly regularly, so I will know for certain the yeast is doing its job. This feels like a big advantage over the beer, which is why I am considering fitting an airlock on the beer fermenting bucket too.