Wine And Beer

Home Wine Making Equipment - Guide For Beginner

Many beginner wine makers are boggled by the sheer number of equipments and supplies used in wine making and this puts them off from trying to make wine at home as they think that it's too complicated.Fret not! If you have been thinking about trying to make wine at home, read the following equipment guide to get a general idea of their purpose and usage in wine making.The fundamental pieces of equipments are: carboys, airlock, siphon, hydrometer and thermometer.A carboy refers to a container used for fermentation of wine. In wine making language, the container is also known as a demijohn. To make wine at home, you can use any container you like as long as it's cleaned and sterilized. Another important criterion is that you must be able to fit an airlock to the container. This leads us to the next question, what is an airlock?An airlock is a simple device used to allow air to escape from a container, yet at the same time, preventing outside air from entering the container. The purpose of this device is to prevent bacteria from infecting your wine. As you probably know, air in the surrounding environment is full of dust particles and bacteria and these are harmful to wine fermentation as they can lead to spoilage of wine. Thus, with an airlock, carbon dioxide produce during fermentation can escape the container and outside air (with bacteria) cannot enter the container to infect the wine.The next device is a siphon and the purpose is very simple - to transfer liquid from one container to the other. For home wine making, it is very common to see 5 gallons (20 litres) of wine being made. Thus, to transfer such large amount of liquids from one container to the other, wine maker usually invest in an auto-siphon to make the process as easy as possible.The last devices are the hydrometer and thermometer. A thermometer requires little explanation for its function, what you need to know is the purpose of having to measure temperature. The purpose of measuring the temperature of the wine is to ensure proper fermentation. Wine yeast thrives best in ambient temperature of 70-80 Fahrenheit (21-27 Celsius). If the temperature is not within these ranges, yeast will not grow well and this will affect wine fermentation.A hydrometer is used to determine the alcohol level of your wine. How do you know that the wine you are making is really wine? What is the alcohol content? To answer all these questions, wine maker will use a hydrometer. The hydrometer checks the relative density of the liquid and base on how much this relative density has fallen during fermentation, wine maker will be able to estimate the alcohol content of the home made wine.