Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
Over the past couple weeks I took the next steps towards making my California Connoisseur Shiraz Kit: Secondary Fermentation and Degassing. I’m a few days behind schedule according to the kit instructions, but hopefully that shouldn’t make much of a difference. If I’ve learned anything from homebrewing, patience is a virtue and taking your time is often rewarded in the quality of the product. I’d imagine that’s the case with making red wine as well. We shall see! Let me walk you through the next steps of the process.
First a review:
In Part 1, I opened the box and reviewed all the ingredients, a few of which are new to me, but they seem easy enough to use. In Part 2, I mixed the kit together and started the fermentation. I was pretty impressed with how quick and easy it was to get things started! A quick mix of the juice concentrate with water, some bentonite, yeast, and away it went!

Secondary Fermentation
After about one week, the winemaking kit instructions had me transfer to a secondary fermenter. This is a process I’ve done numerous times through homebrewing, so no big deal there. I can’t stress enough for new homebrewers and winemakers how helpful it is to use an autosiphon when transferring, or racking, between fermenters. Sterilize the autosiphon and some transfer tubing, connect them together, then pump-pump and away it goes! If you don’t have an autosiphon yet, I highly recommend getting one! It’s probably the most cost efficient upgrade to your process you can get!
The hydrometer reading at this point was 1.004, so we’re right on track!

Degassing
About two weeks later, it was time for the degassing step. Technically the instructions called for degassing on day 20, but life kind of got in the way of my schedule. I ended up doing this step on day 25. I can’t imagine that this delay would negatively impact the wine. I took a taste of the wine and it was bright, fruity, and zippy. Acidity and alcohol were noticeable, but not too sharp. I’d imagine they will round out with time.
The wine also had a bit of carbonation – I guess that’s why we need to degas! First, I racked the wine into a new fermenter. Technically this is the third fermentation step, and herein lies another big difference between winemaking and homebrewing. Whereas secondary fermentation in homebrewing is entirely optional, it seems that multiple rackings are the norm in winemaking. Though it takes a little extra time during the fermentation phase, I’m probably still ahead compared to the total time involved for homebrewing.
After racking, I added two additives: potassium metabisulfite (an antioxidant and preservative) and kieselsol (a clarifying agent). The sulfites sizzled as soon as they hit the wine; the keiselsol was less dramatic.
Finally, I’ve stirred the wine periodically over the past few days to release as much carbon dioxide as possible.
All in all, everything seems to be going smoothly! Check back soon to hear about stabilizing, clarification, bottling, and the best part – tasting!
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
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David Ackley is a writer, brewer, and craft beer marketing consultant. He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder of the Local Beer Blog.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
Well, I’m a homebrewer, but just started my first batch of red wine! It’s a Shiraz winemaking kit from E. C. Kraus. As a homebrewer, I was curious to see how it would go compared to a standard brew day. Long story short – it was much faster and easier than I anticipated! Read on for the details.

Well that was fast…
Mixing up the wine kit took just over an hour, and most of that time was spent cleaning and sanitizing a fermenter, airlock, and stirring spoon. Compare that to all the steps involved in brewing a batch of beer, starting this batch of wine was pretty quick! Just consider the time-saving opportunities for making wine vs. beer:

• No mash (60+ minutes saved)
• No boil (60+ minutes saved)
• No chill-down (30-60 minutes saved)

There’s also a significant amount of energy and water saved wine making wine as compared to beer, since there is no heating involved and no water used to chill the batch.

No new investment in equipment
Since I’ve been homebrewing for several years, I already had pretty much all of the equipment needed to make the wine. My fermenter didn’t leave a ton of headspace for the six-gallon kit, so I may not have reached a full six-gallons. But I can always top off with extra water for secondary fermentation.

Labor? What labor?
Though the usual effort was involved in cleaning and sanitizing the equipment, starting a batch of wine required no more work than what goes into brewing a batch of beer. If anything, it was a little less! There were however a couple of unique tricks that I had to get used to, but after figuring it out it will be that much easier the next time around.
The hardest part of the whole procedure was getting the cap off the bag of juice concentrate! But with a quick search on E. C. Kraus’ website I discovered that they have a cap removing tool that you can purchase for taking the cap off the bag. Problem solved!
The next tricky part was pouring the contents of the bag – almost two gallons of juice – into the fermenter. Not that it was especially challenging – I just had a vision of spilling all that red juice all over the kitchen floor! Luckily, I managed to avoid making a huge mess.
From there the rest was easy. The winemaking kit instructed me to top off with water to make six gallons (I used reverse osmosis water) and add a packet of bentonite. After taking a gravity reading with a sanitized hydrometer (OG: 1.084), I stirred it all together to mix it well and pitched the yeast. And that was that!
Compared to a six-hour brew day, starting a batch of wine is a breeze! Of course it ain’t over til it’s over, so we’ll see how it turns out. But for now, the fermenter’s sitting comfortably at about 70˚F. We’ll check it out in about a week!
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
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David Ackley is a writer, brewer, and craft beer marketing consultant. He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder of the Local Beer Blog.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
Though I’ve been a homebrewer for six years, I haven’t done much in the world of winemaking – until now. Having recently made a mead, I discovered that the process was much less time consuming than homebrewing. With no mash, the “brewing” process was shortened dramatically. So I’ve decided to take things a step further and make my first red wine: a California Connoisseur Shiraz kit from E. C. Kraus.

What’s in the Box
The first noticeable difference between this winemaking kit and homebrew recipe kits I’ve made is the sheer weight of the kit. I was surprised to pick it up from my doorstep and discover considerably more heft than a typical beer recipe box kit. Makes sense – almost two gallons of juice weighs some twenty pounds. Compared to about two quarts of malt extract syrup, that extra liquid makes a difference. I should note that the winemaking kit makes six gallons of wine, compared to about five gallons for a typical homebrewing kit.
Opening the Shiraz kit, I discovered some new ingredients I’d never used before. In addition to the grape juice concentrate, the kit also included:

• Wine Yeast – I’m familiar with different types of beer yeast, but I have a lot to learn about wine yeast. This Shiraz kit comes with one packet of Lalvin EC-1118, a French dry yeast recommended for a wide range of wine styles.
  

• Bentonite – Bentonite is a wine clarifier made from clay. It works by attracting particles with static electricity and when they’re bound together, they settle to the bottom of the fermenter. Bentonite can also reduce off-flavors and oxidation. In this kit, the bentonite is added before fermentation.
  

• Potassium metabisulfite – Potassium metabisulfite is used to prevent oxidation and increase the shelf life of wine.

• Potassium sorbate – This ingredient helps prevent re-fermentation in the bottle.

• Kieselsol & Chitosan – These are clarifiers, both added after fermentation and before bottling. Just like bentonite, they work by using electric charges to attract oppositely charged particles and help them settle out. Kieselsol is negatively charged, chitosan is positively charged, so when used together they’re like a 1-2 punch to help yeast, protein, and tannin settle out, leaving behind a clear wine.

The kit also came with pretty extensive instructions (in both English and French).
One thing I noticed was that the kit did not include corks. Not to worry. Since I don’t have a corker, a pack of these mushroom corks should do the trick.
Other than that, I have everything else I need to make wine from my homebrewing equipment – the fermenting bucket, carboy, auto-siphon, tubing, airlock, hydrometer, and bung. Plus, I’ve been stocking wine bottles for several months, so I should be all ready to go once it’s time to put this Shiraz in the bottle.
Stay tuned as I compare the winemaking process to homebrewing – this should be interesting!
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
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David Ackley is a writer, brewer, and craft beer marketing consultant. He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder of the Local Beer Blog.

The comedian George Carlin once jokingly told people rather than waiting for someone else to make a path, you should go out and make one of your own. I think the same concept applies to starting a homebrew club. If there isn’t one in your area, don’t wait for someone else to do it, get out there and start one!
I had been brewing for a couple of years before someone started a homebrew club in my town. I wondered why I hadn’t thought of it. Nothing has advanced my brewing, and my love of brewing, more than our club’s monthly get-togethers. In our very first meeting, I asked about the off-flavors that I seemed to be encountering, convinced that it was from the local water. Based on my description, other members told me that it likely wasn’t the water, but temperature control was the culprit. Sure enough, when I got better control over my fermenting temperatures, with a temperature controller and a small fridge, my beer drastically improved.
As to what a homebrew club does, well that should be fairly obvious: we gather at a local micro- or nano-brewery and we drink and talk about making beer. People often bring one of their latest creations so we can all try it. Sometimes, people bring a beer they don’t like for us in order to see if we can agree on what went wrong.
In addition to the “mundane” things your club can do, our club has had a few special events, such as homebrew swaps, an experiment where we all brewed the same single-hop IPA each using a different hop (and then comparing), and a few tours of the local breweries.
The thing about starting a homebrew club is that it doesn’t take much effort at all. Surprisingly little, in fact. Our club was set up by someone simply creating a Facebook page, confirming with a local nano-brewery that we could meet there, checking with the brewery and the local police as to whether it was OK for us to bring our own beer (thankfully, it was OK in both cases), and then putting up a sign and sign-up form in the local homebrew shop.
We don’t charge any dues, although we do charge if there will be something that someone has bought. For instance, one of our members gave a presentation on lager styles and brought quite a few samples of the various lagers, and we each chipped in $5 to pay him back.
So, if you’re interested in meeting like-minded brewers, and having a blast while learning about all things related to brewing beer, starting a homebrew club will definitely be a rewarding endeavor.
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John Torrance is a database developer, gadget lover, and avid home brewer living in Lafayette, Colorado. When he’s not actively brewing, he’s generally daydreaming about what he’s going to brew for his next batch. John also makes and sells brewing-related items, which are available at Fermentropy.com.

Most homebrewers that bottle their beer have probably figured out that the bigger the bottle, the fewer bottles you’ll have to fill. That’s why I like to hoard 22 oz. and 750mL beer bottles. It only takes about thirty 22 oz. bottles to bottle a five-gallon batch, compared to about fifty 12 oz. bottles. By extension, bottling beer in growlers should make things even easier, right?
Not so fast. Bottle your beer in growlers, and you run the risk of one exploding!
Bottle conditioning works because yeast consumes priming sugar to create CO₂. Since the bottle is capped, the CO₂ has nowhere to go but into suspension, thereby carbonating the beer.
This CO₂ creates pressure inside the bottle. Regular beer bottles are designed to withstand that pressure, but most growlers are not. Just take a look at a growler and you can see that the glass is relatively thin compared to a normal beer bottle. Growlers are made for transporting beer that has already been carbonated. While there is some pressure in growlers fill with draft beer, it’s nothing compared to the 30 or 35 pounds of pressure that is typically created during bottle conditioning. Bottle been in growlers, and they could explode on you.
I’m sad to say it’s happened to me twice, and I haven’t bottled in a growler since. If it’s happened to you, you’ll agree that it’s worth spending a few extra minutes cleaning and sanitizing a few extra bottles to avoid losing a half-gallon of beer. Cleaning up that much beer is not fun – especially when you could be drinking it instead!
This isn’t to say that no one has ever successfully bottle conditioned their beer in a growler. I’m sure there are homebrewers out there who take the risk, and make sure to keep the temperature of the growler in check so it doesn’t go out of control. But for me, I’d rather just not deal with a stress of wondering, “Is today the day? Is that growler going to blow in my sleep?”
If you’ve reached the point where bottling is too tedious, I highly recommend investing in a homebrew keg system. Sure, the up front investment is higher than it is for bottling, but the saved labor is significant. Plus, you get to really dial in the carbonation of your beer by adjusting the pressure on the CO₂ regulator.
Have you ever tried bottling beer in growlers? Were you successful? Or do you have a broken glass horror story to share?
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David Ackley is a writer, brewer, and craft beer marketing consultant. He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder of the Local Beer Blog.

It doesn’t happen often to homebrewers, but every once in while, a beer fermentation stalls out. It’s called a stuck fermentation. Why does this happen?
Any fermentation that is stressed has a chance at getting stuck. Sources of stress can be a lack of yeast nutrition, fermentation temperatures being too high or too low, or the yeast itself is not of good enough quality or quantity to complete the fermentation.
One of the best things you can do is to avoid a stuck beer fermentation in the first place: build a healthy yeast starter, use yeast nutrient, and keep the fermenter within the recommended temperature range for the yeast you’re using. When all else fails, however, you may need to take measures to resolve a stuck fermentation.

How to Restart a Stuck Beer Fermentation

1. Make sure you actually have a stuck fermentation. Check the hydrometer readings on your beer at least three days apart. Make sure you’ve cleared the hydrometer sample of bubbles, which can affect the reading (just pour the sample a few times between a couple beer glasses). If the reading hasn’t changed and you’re still a ways (more than 5 points) from your estimated final gravity, proceed. But if the reading has changed, just give the beer more time. On the other hand, if the hydrometer reading is static and within about five points of your final gravity, fermentation may just be complete.

2. Check the fermentation temperature. The yeast may have stalled because the fermentation temperature is too cold. Try moving the fermenter to a warmer area. A five-degree rise in fermentation temperature may convince the yeast to “wake up” and get back to work.

3. Rouse the yeast. You can also try mixing the yeast back into solution to restart a stuck beer fermentation. Swirl the fermenter or gently stir the beer with a sanitized spoon. Take care not to slosh or stir too vigorously – you don’t want to introduce air into the beer this late in fermentation.

4. Add yeast energizer. Yeast energizer contains nutrients that will often restart a stuck beer fermentation. Start with 1/2 tsp. per gallon, adding directly to the fermenting beer. More can be added later if your fermentation needs an extra boost.

5. If none of the above work, try racking the beer into a new fermenter and pitching a fresh batch of yeast. Remember to sanitize all of your equipment before doing so.

Stuck fermentations may not happen very often, but knowing what to do when one comes your way will help make sure you don’t miss out on a tasty batch of homebrew.
How do you usually restart a stuck beer fermentation?

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David Ackley is a writer, brewer, and craft beer marketing consultant. He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder of the Local Beer Blog.