E.C. Kraus Home Wine and Beer Making Supplies

Home winemaking, while it can be hard work at times, is a delightful hobby that for some can turn into something more serious such as a second career.  For most, however, winemaking provides a lot of pleasure and excitement in creating something that can be enjoyed by not only them but also by friends and family.  Before you get to that point, however, you need to start at the beginning and learn...

Before hops were a common ingredient, beer was flavored with all kinds of herbs, spices, vegetables, flowers, and roots. One such ingredient was ginger, the intensely flavored root frequently used in cooking Indian food and ginger bread cakes. In one of my favorite new brewing books, Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers, Stephen Buhner notes that ginger was used by the ancients for its medicinal...

There appears to be plenty of information on equipment and supplies, cleaning/sanitation/sterilization, yet I"m having a difficult time of locating a protocol specifically related to maintaining a production area for a home winemaker (counters, floor, fixtures, sinks, drains, walls, etc.). I currently clean up splashes as they occur and monthly I do a fairly thorough wipe down of all surfaces with...

When you’re relatively new to home winemaking, following each and every step of a wine recipe is critical,  but where do you even begin finding good wine recipes?  There are a lot of resources out there, and hopefully this post will shed some light on where to find them. Wine Making Books There are a large number of wine making books out there that are full of wine recipes.  It is important to...

Home winemaking is an enjoyable hobby that can bring you great joy, but if you’re not prepared, it can be frustrating and near impossible.  It’s important to understand the first steps in winemaking; to get a solid grasp of the basics, as well as an understanding of why it is you are doing what you are doing at any step of the way. One of the first steps in winemaking that you should do is to get...

I have really become enamored with the flavor of ground cherries and have made jam and marmalade with them this year, but really want to make some wine with the few quarts left in the freezer from summer, but none of my wine making books mention using them...any ideas? Was planning on mixing white grape concentrate with them, but don't know what amounts to use. Thanks for your help-Name: Debra...

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...

The holidays are about 6 weeks away: have you started shopping for your friends and family?  Are you looking to add to your own gift list?  Here are some wine making book suggestions for you to think about now for the home wine maker that is near and dear to your heart.  Don’t celebrate the holidays?  It’s never the wrong time to surprise an aspiring enologist with a wine making book!Techniques in...

Dear Kraus, Has anyone used STEVIA to sweeten the wine before bottling? It might take more than expected but I would like to try it. I am Diabetic and adding sugar to sweeten the wine just adds problems, so I don’t drink my wine, which my wife is okay with… because she can drink it without problem.   Could there be problem using this sweetener after fermentation? Thanks in advance. Bob W. -----...

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...

Hi:  Thank you for your newsletter each month. It is very informative and helpful to me in my winemaking.   I have a question, "How do I keep the  fruit flavor in my wine? I end up with about 13 percent alcohol content but am losing the fruit flavor. Could you help?   Thanks Ed H.----- Hello Ed, Thank you for all the kind words. We try very hard to bring useful, relevant information to the home...

Hi: When looking at your chart for wine recipes, when you say it makes five gallons, is that five gallons of water plus the fruit and sugar or is it five gallons total with the water, fruit, sugar, etc included? I'm asking this because I want to know if I go over the five gallons, do I need to add more ingredients (yeast nutrient, etc.) according to how much I went over the five gallons? Bernie...

Hi, I have started with 32 lbs. of concord grapes, sorted and crushed.  The recipe (doubled) on page 19 of your book named "Winemaker's Recipe Handbook", recipe #54, the Concord "Fresh -Dessert" one does not call for any water, where the other Concord choices of wine recipes do call for water.  As I have never made wine before that did not call for some water, what can I expect this wine to be...

One of the most commonly used ingredients in home wine making are Campden Tablets. You will find them in almost any of the wine making recipes you will use; talked about in almost any of the wine making books you will read; and called into action by just about any of the homemade wine instructions you will follow.What Do Campden Tablets Do?The original reason these tablets were used in wine making...

  Good Morning: Most of my "fresh fruit" wines are dry. I was talking with a gentleman who also makes his own wines. He told me to double up on the sugar to sweeten my batches. Right now I have a batch of grape wine (brewing since mid-August). It needs to be racked again. If I add sugar to this batch now, will it start fermentation all over?  Thanks, Marlene---------- Hello Marlene,The short...

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...

This is the question every budding home wine maker wants to know, "How can I tell how much alcohol is in my wine?" The problem is, this question is usually asked about the time they're ready to bottle their wine.  Unfortunately, for the amateur winemaker, this is far to late in the process to make any accurate determinations.What Needs To HappenTo know how much alcohol is in your wine, you need...

[This is the conclusion of a two part blog post. See the previous entry for the beginning of this post.]The Alcohol Level Needs To Kept In Balance. In general, the fuller the flavor of a wine, the higher the alcohol level must be to keep it in balance. Wines that do not have enough alcohol as compared to their flavor intensity, will taste harsher. The astringent characters of the wine will...

Here is a very real fact. If you want to put a full-size wine bottle cork into a wine bottle, you need to become a real corker...  What I mean to say is, you need to use a real corker. When you decant a bottle of wine, the cork stopper that you pull out is only a fraction of its original size. This is because the cork was compressed before it was plunged into the wine bottle. Wine corks are...

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...