Within the first 24 hours, our fermentation has fully kicked off and we are underway. Little did we know how exciting bubbles can be! (bubble bubble bubble)

After gathering all of our materials and setting up shop, it was time to start our first batch of wine. Before we could get started we had to clean and sanitize all of our materials.

Wow wow wow lots to do here. After we realized how much scientific learning there was, we decided we had to go get some lab coats. We watched many videos on the wine making process (thanks YouTube) and read articles when we had extra questions. Our first kit that we purchased came with some instructions as well, so we proceeded to take everything we learned and write our own instructions. We plan to keep track of as much data as we can in a spreadsheet document so we can continue to build and track what we have learned.

In an effort to not get completely overwhelmed during our first foray into winemaking, we plan to research and learn about the process in phases. For the first phase we focused on what tools to buy, how to appropriately wash and sterilize our tools, and how to get past the initial steps to where the wine is in the first carboy and fermenting. We are happy to report that phase one has gone well! While it felt a bit clumsy, we can see opportunities to streamline things and are excited to improve our skills.

The second phase we will be learning about will be more about how to customize the wine itself, and the steps to take after the initial fermentation stage is complete. Good luck us!

We wanted to be able to set up a designated space in our home to be "wine central" and house our winemaking workspace and materials. We look forward to using this corner of our lower level, and will plan to decorate it more as time goes on.

We spent the better half of a week gathering all of the tools and materials we would need to make our first 6 gallon wine kit! We ordered some things online, and made a trip out to some local supply shops to get everything we needed. Supplies included cleaning/sanitizing materials, the materials needed to actually produce the wine, as well as some fun extras for our space (like string lights for the ceiling).

Our plan is to start off with making Wine kits while we learn the basics of it all. Because we hope to learn more about the customization piece of winemaking, we plan to split our first 6 gallon batch of wine into 1 gallon carboys during the first racking. This will allow us to experiment with different oaks and finisher amounts during the second fermentation. Because of this plan, we made sure to buy quite a few smaller 1 gallon carboys.