1 Gallon jug as primary for winemaking?

[mmlangon]

Hi all,

I'm just getting started making wine at the 1-gallon scale. My question is whether using a 1-gallon glass jug as a primary will work, and whether there are significant advantages to using a 1.5 or 2 gallon fermenter (aside from having more room to stir the wine and avoiding issues of light exposure). I guess the most obvious concern would be a lack of head space and needing to use a blowoff.

Most of the 1 gallon kits I've come across include a 2 gallon plastic pail as a primary fermenter, but I'm wondering if this amount of space is an absolute necessity as I'd love to keep it simple with two 1 gallon jugs as a primary and secondary. I've fermented plenty of beer in these jugs and have never had a problem, but I don't want to assume the same principles apply to the winemaking process.

I'm using a 1 gallon juice kit (juice is a concentrated +/-.5 gallons with .5 gallons of top-up water.

Any thoughts are much appreciated! Cheers!

 

[bernardsmith]

Never made wine from a kit so take my advice with that disclaimer but IMO, using a bucket as the primary makes life much simpler. This for several reasons.
Unlike beer, fruit does not produce a "krausen", although it can - and often does - foam a great deal. A one gallon vessel will not easily hold one gallon of must AND the froth and foam that that produces after you pitch the yeast;
Usng a blow off tube simply allows the froth a place to go but the issue for wine makers (if not brewers) is that the yeast benefits from being exposed to air and you want to be able to stir the liquor several times a day to incorporate air.
Stirring has two additional benefits
a) it helps remove CO2. CO2 in fact inhibits fermentation and b) yeast tends to collect at different heights in the carboy. Stirring ensures that all the sugars in the liquor are exposed to all the yeasts in very efficient ways reducing stress in the yeast.
Stirring also means that you can easily keep all the fruit saturated by the liquor so preventing spoilage - pushing the fruit down into the juice and being able to work the fruit through the narrow mouth of a glass carboy is not easy.
The bucket can also be used to sanitize equipment and tools and can be used to help bottle your wine if , for example, you wish to back sweeten the wine before bottling (easier to sweeten the batch than each bottle).
One last point - most experienced wine makers make more than a gallon of wine (I don't mean that they make 5 gallons like brewers might - I mean that if a recipe calls for 1 gallon they will likely make 1.25 gallons or 1.125 gallons) Here's why: wine needs to age and aging works best if there is no air to oxidize the wine (oxidation affects color and taste). - {Oh, notice I said earlier that yeast benefits from exposure to air and during the active fermentation there is no problem if the wine is exposed to air largely - I think because the fruit is blanketed in CO2.But once the active fermentation has ceased the yeast is no longer producing CO2 and the yeast doesn't need air (as far as the wine maker is concerned), and the wine certainly does not need or benefit from exposure to air}
You want to have enough additional wine to be able to top up the carboy if you rack every couple or three months to remove the wine from sediment that drops out of suspension. If you are making wine in a gallon vessel there is really no way that you can make a volume of wine that is larger than that vessel... so it is very practical to make the nominal gallon in the 2 gallon bucket and reserve the extra pint or quart of wine for topping up... Now how that may work with a kit that provides concentrates or juice I cannot say...
In short , there is no obvious downside to obtaining a 2 gallon food grade bucket and using it as your primary then aging wines in a glass carboy... But there are many obvious benefits.. so yer pays yer money and yer takes yer chance...

 

[DoctorCAD]

A 1 gallon glass bottle will not make a very good primary. The number one reason is the huge purple stain that you will develop from trying to ferment a gallon of wine in a gallon container, it will foam and overflow, no doubt.

The rest of the stuff, stirring, yeast need oxygen, etc. are all secondary to cleaning up a really sticky and smelly spot.

Makes a great secondary, though.

 

[KevinM]

Using two 1 gallon containers could potentially work, but then you might have sugar concentration differences and so on. I'm not sure how much that'll matter when it's racked back together into a 1 gallon at the end.

 

[mgonbrewlab]

For an all juice wine, this will not be a big deal. Just leave some extra space during primary (ie, don't use your whole .5 gal water) and top if up after active fermentation slows or plan on topping up when you rack to secondary. This still doesn't address your issue of how to make up lost volume on your second (and subsequent, if needed) rackings. With a juice wine this may not be a big deal (might only have to rack once and let it clear).

Overall, though, a bucket will make things simpler. Headspace is not an issue during active fermentation for reasons mentioned by bernardsmith, so getting a large bucket gives you room to grow. I personally use the same Ale Pails and bottling buckets for beer and wine with no issues.