Red Wine Making Starter Kit with 20 L Glass Demijohn

The gear we’d put together for anyone making their first red. Everything here is something we sell on its own and use ourselves, bundled so you’re not standing in the aisle wondering what you’ve forgotten.

A 20 L batch fills around 24 to 26 standard 750 ml bottles once the wine is racked off its sediment. That’s enough to learn the process without committing a whole garage to it.

Not included

• Grapes or juice
• Wine bottles. See our wine bottles.
• A bucket or vat, if you’re crushing whole grapes

How it works

1. Clean and sanitise the demijohn, airlock and syphon with a metabisulphite solution.
2. Fill and pitch. Add your juice or crushed grapes, plus nutrient and yeast following the directions on each pack. Take a hydrometer reading before fermentation starts.
3. Ferment with the airlock fitted. Keep the demijohn somewhere with a steady temperature.
4. Check it’s finished. When the hydrometer reading stops changing over a few days, fermentation is done.
5. Rack the wine off the sediment with the syphon, and let it clear. Don’t rush this. Wine bottled too early tastes thin.
6. Bottle and cork. Fill your bottles, drive the corks home with the hand corker, and give it time.

New to it? Read our step-by-step wine making guide, or pop into Laverton North or Epping and we’ll walk you through it.