Reddit reviews Techniques in Home Winemaking: The Comprehensive Guide to Making Château-Style Wines
We found 5 Reddit comments about Techniques in Home Winemaking: The Comprehensive Guide to Making Château-Style Wines. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Vehicule Press
To reset some expectations from beer.
First, it goes without saying. No heat. Don't even think about using your burner.
Premium wine yeasts are dry. Lallemand, Scott Labs, etc, are highly regarded, with many other players in the field. White Labs/Wyeast are not typically used or referenced in winemaking literature, despite having offerings in the area. I'm not saying they're bad, but they don't garner the same respect as the wine yeast labs like Scott Labs. If you haven't read it, I suggest you gander at Scott Labs fermentation handbook . For a more in-depth technical and process reference: Pambianchi
As for additives. That's the name of the game. They all have different purposes at all points in the process. Nutrients, enzymes, Tannins, Additives, other finishing compounds, oak chips, and finings. In general gelatin is not used for fining wine as it strips too much tannin (but is useful in finishing an overly-tanic wine). Fermaid O and K were actually designed as wine nutrients, so if you have them on hand, great. Enzymes are an absolute must. If you choose not to use finings be prepared to wait a very long time for clear wine. Sulfites will keep your wine flavors protected and fresh. Discard these process steps at your peril.
Timeframe: You aren't going to make a premium wine in less than 4 months. White wines can take 4-8 months, red wines take 6 months to 2 years easily.
You must always, always, always, top up your aging wine. Any headspace will lead to infection. There is no such thing as the CO2 blanket. Kegs can help, but unless you have nitrogen, kegs aren't great storage, as you want to get all the CO2 out of wine in most cases.
Beer bottles are ok for storing wine in the 1-3 year timeframe. When you get into extended aging, premium non-agglomerated corks are used. Note that there are different grades and aging-time/quality of corks. Not all corks are equivalent.
Yes, I agree kits make medeocre wine. The first thing to do is to buy grapes or juice at harvest time. You have missed the fall harvest at this point for North America (through September and October). If you are lucky, you are near a supplier that can get southern hemisphere grapes, usually arriving in April or May. For whites, Juice buckets are a great option. For reds, it's limiting but not as limiting as a kit, so I recommending fermenting on the skins and pressing yourself.
Techniques in home winemaking is a good one that walks you through a lot of the basics and some of the science. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1550652362?pc_redir=1405492032&robot_redir=1
Techniques in Home Winemaking by Daniel Pambianchi
I have it, but haven't done anything with it. Not a technical book, but definitely advanced. I would say it's more technical than "How to Brew", but not much. If I wanted anything more technical I would start with this books bibliography :)
Techniques in Home Winemaking is always at the top of the list for grape wines.
Schramm's book is definitely at the top some other good reads are:
On Mead:
WineMaking in general:
Good Reads for science: