Of all the pieces of homemade wine equipment in which you can invest, the gravity hydrometer ranks as one of the highest as being money well spent. Not only can the hydrometer tell you how much alcohol your wine is going to have, it can tell you how far along your fermentation has progressed and even whether or not the fermentation has completed.
Yet, many beginning winemakers do not use a hydrometer. I can see their eyes glaze over as I begin to explain to them how the hydrometer works and its applications. They think it’s over-complicating their newly-found hobby and want nothing to do with such scientific equipment.
In reality, the hydrometer simplifies the winemaker’s life for all the reasons mentioned earlier. Think of the hydrometer as a compass for navigating your fermentation. It will tell you where your fermentation stands and in what direction it is headed.
Taking a hydrometer reading is deceptively quick and easy. In fact, it’s easier than using a thermometer. All you are trying to do is see how high or low the hydrometer is floating in your wine. You take a reading by seeing where the surface of the wine is crossing the scales on the hydrometer.
It’s that simple: make sure the hydrometer is floating, and take a reading. If the hydrometer is touching bottom, then you either need more wine or you need to use a taller container. For example, a gallon glass carboy is typically not tall enough to take a reading with most hydrometers.
We have hydrometer test jars, also known as H-jars to help make this process even easier than it already is. They are basically slender tubes or vials with a sturdy base. They are designed specifically for taking hydrometer readings. And, they’re not that expensive when compared to the wine is will be helping you to make.
Here are a couple of articles listed on our website that cover this topic in a little more detail: Getting To Know Your Hydrometer and Hydrometer Scales And What They Mean. You may also want to get the book, First Steps In Winemaking, which has a great section on using a gravity hydrometer.
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

Finally, the numbers are in! We have tallied, checked, scrutinized, scratched our heads, double-checked some more, and licked-our-pencil-sharp to come up with:

Yes, that’s correct! Listed below are the 2010 winners of each brand of wine ingredient kit we offer. These are the wine varietals and blends that have smacked across more lips than any other type in their particular product group.
This may be an eye-opener for some and a breath of fresh air for others, but in either case, the chart below shows what’s been hot and what’s been not in 2010. Why not try one of these winners for your next batch?

What Are Wine Ingredient Kits, You Ask?
A wine ingredient kit contains all the ingredients you will need to start a batch of wine brewing. All the wine ingredients are packaged together into a convenient ingredient kit form. You get: the grape juice, the wine yeast, wine clarifiers, even oak wood in some cases to give your wine barrel-aged qualities–enough to make 6 gallons of wine (30 bottled).
Many wine ingredient kits even come with decorative wine bottle labels that will give your bottles of wine a professional look, something you can be proud to pass along to family and friends.
These kits make it extremely easy for you to learn how to make your own wine. Complete, foolproof directions are included that tell you specifically what to do and when to do it. They take the guesswork out of the equation and put you on the path to successful wine making, starting with your very first batch of wine.
Happy Wine Making
Customer Service
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

Dear Adventures in Homebrewing:
I just started my first batch of wine using the “California Connoisseur Necessities Box” (Chianti option).  In 6 days, I will be racking the wine.
When racking into glass jugs, I understand that I need to leave behind the sediment created during the primary fermentation.  However, the plastic fermenter is NOT transparent and it will be difficult to see when I will start encountering the sediment as I drain the wine in to my glass wine carboy.  Naturally, I would like to get as much of the good wine as possible and leave behind the sediment.  Any suggestions on how to achieve.
Thanks Gil
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Hello Gil,
I wouldn’t make too big a fuss about the first racking. If you get some of the sediment along with the wine in to the wine carboy, that’s just fine.
All you are looking to do at this stage is to leave the bulk of the sediment behind–most of it, not all of it. If you attempt to eliminate all of the sediment during this particular racking, you will be loosing too much wine, unnecessarily.
During the first racking you are much better off focusing on the wine as opposed to the sediment. Get as much wine as possible, regardless of the amount of sediment that comes with it into the wine carboy.
When you do the last racking, before bottling, this is when you want to focus on eliminating all the sediment, even at the expense of a little wine. Fortunately, by the time you get to this stage the amount of sediment to deal with will be very minimal, so the amount of wine lost is very small.
Happy Wine Making
Customer Service
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

As 2010 draws to a close, and a new year comes into view, I thought it would be nice to take another look at the blog entries that have proved to be most helpful to home winemakers this years.
These are the blog entries that everyone here has gotten the most response from, or has been able to utilize the most when helping a customer.
As I result here is the list of the top 10 most helpful posts of 2010:

1. Can I Make Wine As Good As The Pros?
2. Avoid The Potholes Of Home Wine Making
3. Can I Use Grape Juice From The Grocery Store To Make Wine?
4. Is Wine Yeast And Baking Yeast The Same?
5. Controlling Alcohol With A Gravity Hydrometer
6. Are Sulfites Needed To Make Wine From Concentrates?
7. Picking When To Pick… The Winemaker’s First Decision
8. Why Do I Have To Rack My Wine?
9. Controlling Your Wine’s Acidity With An Acid Testing Kit
10. The Role Oxygen Plays In Aging Wine

I’d like to point out that there were a lot of other topics not covered in these 10 posts. These are posts covering an array of subjects from choosing the right rubber stopper size to choosing the right wine bottle label, or how to use a grape destemmer, so feel free to explore the rest of this blog.
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

Almost everyone understands that wines need to age, but very few people realize just how important aging actually is to a wine. Aging is a process that is most often either underestimated or completely ignored by the home winemaker.
In reality, I would venture to say that aging a wine is just as important as the quality of the grapes used to produce the wine. If you’re missing either one, the wine will suffer noticeably.
Within the first 30 days of aging most people experience enough improvement in their wine’s flavor and bouquet to agree with this statement. The first 30 days is when a significant portion of the improvement happens. Continued aging will also reap additional benefits, and each additional month will provide marginal improvements.
As a frame of reference, the chart below displays the typical amount of aging that is expected by several of our homemade wine kits. They are listed by brand.

RECOMMENDED AGING TIMES:

The wines made from these homemade wine kits can either be aged in wine bottles, or they can be left to age in a wine carboy or similar. Either way is fine. You will notice improvements with either method of aging.
My personal preference is to age the wine in bottles with a traditional cork stoppers. If it is a white wine, I may consider using synthetic corks to better control the amount of oxygen that is being exchange passed the cork.
Happy Wine Making
Customer Service at E. C. Kraus
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

I know my opinion may be a little bias, but I find it very hard to think of a gift more thoughtful and sincere than a bottle of homemade wine. Wine, by itself, is the kind of gift that brings happiness and togetherness. Add to that the fact that you made it with your own hands, and you’ve got one heck of a gift that can be cherished and enjoyed throughout the holiday season.
It didn’t always used to be the case, but today you can dress up your wine bottles to give them a more professional and personalized look. All you need is a computer printer and you can print personal messages on a variety of pre-designed wine bottle labels that we offer.
There’s also decorative sleeves of various colors that you can fit over the neck of the wine bottle–just like you see pictured to the right. These neck sleeves are called Heat Shrink Capsules. That’s because they shrink perfectly to the bottle when heat is applied. Just put a capsule over the neck and dip it in boiling water for 5 to 10 seconds.
With a little imagination, you can turn a bottle of wine into the professional-looking, personalized wine gift.
Nothing makes a better gift than something you’ve made. And that’s what makes wine making gifts so special. They’re something you made that can be enjoyed by other. Add to this the wine bottle labels with your own personalized message and you’ve got one special gift.
Happy Wine Making
Customer Service
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

Christmas shopping for wine making gifts is not an easy task. You’re trying to find a special gift for the home winemaker in your life when you barely know a wine press from a wine barrel. What could be more difficult. Well, we’re going to make this holiday season a little more merry for you and give you a little help.
We’ve assisted all kinds of unknowing Christmas shoppers over the years, and here’s what we’ve found. There is a group of wine making products that most home winemaker’s don’t have but should. These are items that either make wine making more fun or make the wine better. These are the type of items that make perfect wine making gifts.
Wine Bottle Labels 
Here’s a fantastic way to add a professional touch to a wine bottle while also keeping it unique and personal. We have wine bottle labels of various designs that can be customized with your own personal message. They come four to a sheet and can be ran through any computer printer.
Hydrometer Storage Case
Most home winemakers have a hydrometer for testing their wine, but many home winemakers do not have a safe way to store their hydrometer. They’re made of very thin glass and break if jostled around during storage, etc. A new item we offer that solves this problem is our Hydrometer Storage Case.
Floor Model Corker 
Turn your special someone into a real corker! If corking wine bottles seems to be a big chore, a Floor Model Corker may just do the trick. One person can go to town corking bottle after bottle with minimal effort. Add a second person to load the bottle while the other loads the cork and you’ve got one fast operation.
Bottle Tree 
Another item that would fit the category, nice wine making gifts, is our Bottle Tree. This item allows you to dry up to 90 wine bottles at a time in a very small space. The Bottle Tree is put together with stack-able pieces, so it works just as good for 9 bottles as it does 90.
MiniJet Wine Filter 
This wine filter is a great way to add a polished, brilliant look to any wine. While MiniJet Wine Filter doesn’t filter hundreds of gallons an hour like a professional winery filter does, it still filters just as good a professional winery filter. It takes out cloudy particles just as fine as the professional wine filters. It just does at 15 gallons per hour.
22 Gallon Tuff-Tank 
Maybe the winemaker you know is ready to step up their operation. Well then give them a big boost with our 22 Gallon Tuff-Tank. This tank holds a lot of wine in a very small area. They’re also very rugged. The lid threads on and off and seals up tight with a rubber o-ring around the lid making it perfect for fermenting wine.
Still need more help?
You can contact us during office hours and talk to one of our representatives who are eager to help you find gift that’s just right!
Merry Christmas & Happy Wine Making
Customer Service
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.