Wine Making Supplies You Will NeedWINE MAKING SUPPLIESMuch has been said about wine and its gastronomic and health benefits that people are actually going out of their way to make their own. When you look into it, you'll realize that it's easy to make your own batch; wine making supplies are readily available.
It's handy to have an abundance of bottles around for special occassions, Whether it's Christmas or someones birthday, a bottle of wine is always a nice gift to bring to dinner. If you buy wine for several people at Christmas, whether it's clients friends or family it can get pretty expensive up here in Canada. A decent bottle of wine from the liqour store is going to be around $15 can. You can even add fancy labels at around $1.00 each and your going to top out at about $5.00 a bottle when you make your own. Plus you have that sense of accomplishment when you have created it yourself...so gather up your wine making supplies and let's get started! The savings can add up pretty quick...even after you have bought all your wine making supplies. It might seem like a lot of money at first, but you usually recoup those costs in the first couple of batches. So why not uncork your wine-making creativity? To help you get started, here's a list of the different wine making supplies which you would need: Wine Bottles Of course, you need the wine bottles; and they're available in different colors. There are green champagne or claret bottles; clear screw cap, burgundy split, and claret bottles; and blue hock bottles, to name a few. They come in cases of 12 or 24, with each case holding 2 ½ gallons. If you are planning on bottling up a batch of wine to give away at christmas you could pick say red and green bottles half and half and make up some personalized christmas labels to make your gift giving extra fun and special. Look for novelty christmas stuff at the dollar store that is christmas related to tie around the tops of the bottles with red and green ribbons. Valentines day...all red with cupids!! have fun with it and let your creative side come out to create something that is truly unique, a gift to remember.
Corks and Corkers The corks come straight or tapered; natural or synthetic. The #9 straights come in the standard 15/16 inches in diameter and 1 ½ or 1 ¾ inches long and can be ordered in bags of 1,000, 100, 12, or 25. The #8 super straights are 7/8 inches in diameter, 1 ½ inches long, and cut with an angle on both ends for easy insertion. Synthetic straights are longer at 1 ¾ inches and cost cheaper. Tapered corks, on the other hand, are available in small, medium, or large sizes for bottles and jugs.
If you have corks, you need corkers to insert the corks into the bottles. The choices include a bench model corking machine from Italy which can easily insert a #9 straight cork into 150 bottles in an hour. It's recommended if you're bottling from 5 to more than 10 gallons at a time. If, on the other hand, you don't have space for a big corker, you can opt for the hand-held model which can insert a #9 and even a #10 cork, no sweat. Labels When the wine bottles have been filled and corked, you need to have labels to make them look like the real thing, especially if you want to serve them or give them away as gifts. You can order attractive ready-made labels which you can then customize for any type of wine using your computer and printer. The labels are gummed and die cut, so you simply peel and stick. 
Bottle Neck Capsules
Another way to make your finished product look really nice is to fit capsules over the top and around the neck of the wine bottle. The capsules come in different colors and shrink wrap snugly on any type of bottle for a professional look. If you're bottling champagne, you need decorative gold foil capsules which can fit over a champagne stopper and wire hood. Simply slide them on and use your hand to put them in place. They'll make your champagne bottles look special. It's a must in your wine making supplies kit. Screw Caps If you're concerned about your wine getting "corked," or having the musty smell and taste of the substance used to sanitize the cork prior to bottling, you can use metal or plastic screw caps instead to seal the bottles. The caps come in 28-, 30-, and 38mm sizes which fit most screw-type bottles and jugs. Rubber Stoppers Rubber stoppers are necessary for aging or fermenting wine. Available with or without holes, they are made of pharmaceutical-grade rubber for wine bottles, gallon jugs, or carboys. Air Locks Air locks are important to provide a vent during fermentation while keeping contaminants, like dust and insects, from entering. Its accessories include an air lock brush for cleaning the inner chambers and an air lock adapter screw cap to keep the lock in place. Siphoning and Racking Implements These wine making supplies include: flow control hose clamp; vinyl hoses or polyethylene tubing; plastic or stainless steel racking tubes; plastic bottle filler which can be easily shut off while filling; in-line faucets to control the flow of a siphon; and siphon kits to transfer wine from jug to jug. Wax Sealer You need wax sealers to make corked wine bottles air tight while being stored upright or on their side. Pour the melted wax at the mouth of the bottle after inserting the cork. You may also dip the bottle tip into a vat of melted wax to seal it. Wax sealers are available in different colors, and each pound is enough to seal up to 150 bottles. Carboys and Jugs Made of glass or plastic, these big containers can accommodate from one gallon to six gallons and are used for secondary wine fermentation and bulk aging. While plastic carboys are cheaper, winemakers prefer glass carboys while shopping for wine making supplies because they are more durable and are ideal for long term storage. Cleaners and Sanitizers Wine containers, wooden barrels, and wine making supplies and equipment need to be sanitized regularly using cleaning solutions that are free from sulfites and chlorine, a known carcinogen. Specify oxygenated cleaners, no-rinse cleansers, and special neutralizers to wash bottles and carboys. Other sterilizers such as sodium or potassium metabisulfite are used in small doses with winemaking juices to destroy molds and bacteria.
Looking for royalty of wine making supplies: Nothing beats oak barrels for aging wine, so you should consider getting them if you want to produce your own special vintage. Speaking of wine barrels, winemakers who know their stuff specify French-made barrels hand crafted from limousine oak - a special type of wood that is known for its sweetness and superb aging characteristics. Each of these barrels can accommodate 7.5 gallons, a fair amount of wine. Fermenters They include stainless steel tanks that can accommodate from 13 to 25 gallons in volume. Ideal for primary or secondary fermentation, the variable capacity tanks feature a heavy-duty faucet for transferring wine for bottling. Now that you have all the wine making supplies you need to get started, what are you waiting for. Clear a spot out in your basment and earmark it for your wine making domain and get started. Cheers
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