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Even though most wines are made by prestigious
wineries all around the world, many people are making them at
home You don't have to live in Italy, France, or even
California to enjoy winemaking as a hobby and even maybe a small
home based business.
Wine making equipment can get expensive, but most can be
found easily on the internet or in local supply stores. You
must insure that the wine making equipment that you get is high
enough quality to produce wine that is safe to drink. The
actual fermentation process is an opportunity for dangerous
chemicals and bacteria to enter your batch of wine.
A Carboy, a glass jug available in various
sizes, is the most basic piece of equipment you will need. Rubber
stoppers, known as bungs, are probably the next most important
piece of wine making equipment. These bungs have holes drilled in
them to install the airlocks. Make sure that your bung is the
correct size for the Carboy that you chose.
The airlocks that fit into the bungs prevent
oxygen from entering the wine while keeping out the carbon
dioxide. If too much oxygen enters the wine it will start
oxidizing which will harm the wine and effect it's taste.
The amount of sugar in the wine must be tested at various times
throughout the fermentation process. This done using a Hydrometer
Tube. It looks like a large thermometer with a piece of paper with
numbers on it stuck inside the glass tube.
Another required piece of wine making equipment
is the "Wine Thief". It is the glass or plastic tubes
that you see winemakers use to take a sample of the wine. It works
like kids taking soda out of a glass with a straw. You just hold
your finger over one end to create a vacuum seal which hold the
wine in the Thief.
While most of the large wineries use oak barrels to store and age
their wine, you can probably get by with a plastic bucket big
enough for the amount of wine you are making. Be sure the bucket
is large enough to contain all the foam that is created during the
fermentation process.
The last piece of wine making equipment is the hose that is used
for the process of "racking". Racking is moving the wine
from one container to another, usually by siphoning with the hose.
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