E.C. Kraus Home Wine and Beer Making Supplies

The art and science of winemaking has been around for millennia, though certainly the techniques and procedures have evolved throughout the course of winemaking history.  It takes a lot of time, practice, and patience to become an expert winemaker, and even then, a bad batch can come along despite all your best intentions and efforts.  With all that being said, one thing has always remained true...

There are many more pieces of homemade wine equipment than can be described in one short post.  It is very important to understand the different types of homemade wine equipment, how they function, and whether or not a particular piece of winemaking equipment is needed in your home.  Therefore it’s important to introduce to you as many pieces of equipment as possible in as many posts as it takes!...

Another year has passed, and the rearview mirror is full! I always use this time as an opportunity to reflect on what's happened. In doing so I have come up with a list of my top 10 favorite wine making posts. These are wine making post that I feel have been helpful, entertaining and interesting. They are listed in no particular order. You might want to give them a once-over and see if there's...

Making wine from grape juice is relatively straightforward, but maybe now you’ve grown more comfortable with the process, and you’re ready for the next level: making wine from grapes.  Is making wine from wine grapes really all that different from making wine with juice? Most of the process of making wine from grapes and making wine from juice is the same; however, it is in the first steps where...

We are in the midst of the holiday season, and the days to purchase gifts for your friends and loved ones are going by quickly.  But there's still time!  Place your order with us by noon, December 19th, and you'll have it in time to place under the Christmas tree.Perhaps you know someone who is an avid home winemaker, or maybe you know someone who keeps talking about making their own wine at home...

Hello Winemakers:I am getting ready to start my first batch of wine from concentrate. I am a little confused about the sanitizing process for large pieces of equipment. The directions say to dissolve so much sanitizing stuff to one gallon of water. Does this mean a gallon will do the job? With a 6 gallon tuft tank or a 6 gallon glass carboy, for example, do you pour the gallon in the container and...

Here are five wine making tips for using a grape press. These are basic bits of information that describes the central role grape presses play when making wine at home.1 . You Can Press More Than Just Grapes With A Wine Press: While grape presses are sold with the intent of being used for making grape wine, they work perfectly fine for pressing other fruits. Everything from tiny elderberries on up...

Hello, You say grapes must be crushed before pressing, what do you use to crush them with? Thank you, Tony ----- Hello Tony, Crushing the wine grapes is a very straight forward process. All you are looking to do is burst the skin on each grape. This is necessary to efficiently release the juice from the pulp before pressing or fermenting the grape pulp. If crushing is not done first, you...

I grew up in a small steel town northwest of Pittsburgh. Most of the Italian families I knew made homemade wine and mine was no different. My Grandfather even grew his own grapes. No matter what the occasion was or which family's house we were in, there was always wine on the table.My own making wine story began about 15 years ago. Having moved across the country to California, and although wine...

I make my wine the old fashion way, by the grapes localy then crush, and press. Let the juice to ferment in the open barrel. When the fermentation is finished I will transfer the juice to the fifty gallon Barrel and close for about two month. And I love my wine. This is my story, Excuse my poor english. Name: Giuseppe D'Angelo State: NYRead More » »

My father started making wine back in the 1960’s. He had a very basic set up - I remember a dozen or more gallon jugs each with it’s own air lock - a Styrofoam cup taped to the side of each jug with a tube coming out the top of each jug. Some of his wines weren’t so great but some were very good. I helped him from time to time but mostly it was just him, however I always helped drink the wines!He...

Well, We have 5 Vines, 2 Muscadine and 3 Scuppernong, 5 Pear Trees. This was my first year of wine making. Check out my page on Facebook ... It keeps Family and Friends up to date on my wine making... its new. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Raleigh-Vineyards/296244417079615 What makes you/your setup unique? When my Son Joined the USMC, I turned his Bedroom into the Wine making room. When he comes...

I built my own wine press. I grow muscadine grapes. I find peach wine the least expensive and less work. I find ways to process mango wine when the fruit is free to me. Name: Charles C. Applegate State: FloridaRead More » »

Any of the wine making books you read, will tell you that grapes need to be crushed and pressed. The same holds true for the directions that typically come with wine making recipes. But what does crushing and pressing actually mean? Many beginning wine makers think they both to mean the same thing, that the terms are interchangeable, when in fact both mean something very different. To understand...

Hello  E. C. Kraus: I’ve read a lot of the articles on your site concerning wine making. The one titled “Wine Making With Grapes” mentions that there is a different method of processing red grapes than there is for white grapes, but I’m not sure I completely understand the process for red grapes. What does it mean when it says that they are to be “crushed and fermented with the skin and pulp for...

Hello-   I've never made wine; but, I'm slowly acquiring the wine making materials. I would like to make fruit wines mostly plum and perhaps strawberry and peach.   From what I've been reading it seems that either one starts with juice and does the whole fermentation process that way or that one ferments the chopped up raw fruit contained in a bag for a week or so and then continues the...

Hello Kraus, I made 5 gallons of grape juice by using a steam juicer. In this process the stems were still attached to the grapes. Do I need to do anything special from the normal wine making process? I was told the stems contain pectin and may require additives. Thank you, Henry---------- Hello Henry,   I believe what your friend was referring to is the tannin that is in the stems of the grapes....

Hello EC Kraus: We have 17 gal of 2009 Syrah, it tastes a little bitter to us. Should we add conditioner before bottling? Thank you Bobbi ---------- Hello Bobbi,Wine Conditioner is not designed to cover up bitterness. It is a wine sweetener for people that do not like their wines dry. A better avenue would be to try to figure out why the wine is bitter. Then see if it can be remedied, not...

There are many misconceptions and misguided assumptions about making wine at home. Most all of them are perpetuated by individuals who never even tasted or made homemade wine. Others are simply born out of the mystique surrounding the commercial wine industry.How can something so sophisticated be made in one's kitchen?Here are the ones that we run into the most. The ones that flat-out drive us...

The Wine Institute, a California based organization representing over 1,000 wineries throughout the state of California, stated in it's recent report that the U.S. has now surpassed France in the amount of wine it consumes. In 2010, we Americans consumed some 330 million cases of wine, topping France's 320 million cases for the same year. This makes the U.S. the largest consumer of wine in the...