Wine Fermenting Equipment

Wine and fermenting equipment

Fermenting is two jobs, not one, and they want different equipment. The first stage is vigorous, messy and short. The second is slow, quiet and long. Getting the right vessel for each is most of what separates a clean wine from a disappointing one.

Fermenters for the first stage

Primary fermentation is where the yeast does its loudest work, and where you need room, a wide opening and something you can actually clean.

• 30L drums and pails. The standard. Available as a bare drum with grommet, or complete with tap, airlock and thermometer. The pail versions have a wider opening, which matters if you are fermenting on fruit rather than juice.
• 60L drums. For double batches, or for fermenting on skins where the fruit takes up volume the juice will later occupy.
• Taps, lids, O-rings and sediment-reducing fittings. The parts that fail first and cost least.

For the second stage, the long quiet clearing, you want glass rather than plastic and a narrow neck rather than a wide one. That is what our demijohns and carboys range is for, along with the bungs that fit them.

The gear that goes with it

Syphons and racking canes for moving liquid off the sediment without disturbing it or splashing air through it. Bungs in rubber and silicone, solid or drilled, sized to fit. S-bend and cylindrical airlocks. Hydrometers and a test flask, which is how you know a ferment has actually finished rather than merely gone quiet. Funnels, one with a mesh filter plate. Tubing in 7.9, 10 and 12mm. pH papers, a wine thief for pulling a sample, and 750ml green wine bottles with Novatwist caps.

Ships Australia-wide from our Melbourne store. If you are setting up from scratch and working out what a first batch actually needs, ask us. It is usually a shorter list than people expect.