Topic: Build-It-Yourself

An amateur winemaker/woodworker shares a do-it-yourself project that combines both of his favorite hobbies. The build repurposes a 5-L (1.3-gallon) oak barrel that has been retired from aging wine into a wine-serving vessel. Now he’s serving homemade wine from a bag in style.

Realizing the large temperature swings in his garage don’t make for a great environment to conduct fermentations, a home winemaker converted chest freezers to temperature-controlled “cellars” that cool or heat to a preset temperature for both fermenting and bulk aging his wines.

A lot of thought and planning should be done before you begin designing a home winery. Whether building a new space or refurbishing an existing area, you want to make the winery as conducive to your needs as possible. From accessibility to temperature control, we lay out what you need to know.

Get the most from your wine cellar by maximizing the space you have. Two keys to this are leveraging vertical space and mobility.

Bird netting is essential to protect your precious grapes form birds after veraison. However, anyone with their own backyard vineyard knows how difficult it can be to apply the netting and also role it up compactly for storage after harvest. With that in mind, a home winemaker came up with two DIYs to make the tasks easier.

After years of making wine in various locations throughout my house out of necessity and lack of a dedicated space, I recently had to evaluate my process. For years I fermented grapes

If your home winemaking club runs a wine competition, you should check out this DIY stand stand that allows a high-volume wine opener to go mobile.

When your home vineyard grows to a certain size a hand-held or backpack sprayer just won’t cut it. Use these plans to build a tow-behind sprayer to save time and effort while executing your spray program.

The best wine cellars offer home winemakers, wine collectors, or anyone else stockpiling wine a stable, secure, chilly space that exists in complete darkness 99.9% of the time. Get some construction options that a homeowner might consider when designing a wine cellar.

The the purpose of this project was to minimize oxygen and achieve longer shelf life on fruit wines. One trick commercial folks use to increase shelf life is packaging under a vacuum.

A home winemaker from California’s Sierra Foothills shares his design for an air-conditioned wine storage room he built for his garage.

Build this basket press using HDPE plastic.

If you have a free wall in your garage, you can have your entire winery organized there. See the plans by Steve Hughes.

A reader’s basement renovation takes shape.

Over the years I have accumulated lots of pieces of fairly delicate labware to perform a number of winemaking tests. After recently remodeling my garage winery with some cast off kitchen cabinets

Materials for Project: 1.) sand paper grits 40, 80, 120, 240 2.) matte black paint 3.) 3 or 4 coach bolts with washers and nuts 4.) drill and drill bits 5.) 3

There are lots of different styles of racking you can use in your cellar, so it’s worth considering the advantages and disadvantages of each as you work out the details of your

I learned quickly during my early days of cleaning up after myself in the winery that a carboy brush is designed to spackle the walls, surrounding cabinets and the user with undesirable

Recently Brew Your Own magazine did a story about the pneumatic bottle capper that I had built to cap beer bottles. A short time later, I was contacted by WineMaker Magazine asking

Parts and equipment list Trailer: Small utility trailer kit ¾-inch treated plywood decking (2) wide turf tires Spray system: 35-gallon (132-L) poly tank (2) bulkhead fittings PTO (power take off) roller pump

Don’t want to fork over the money it costs to buy a destemmer-crusher? Good with your hands? Try building this!

Build your own wine carrying case to keep your bottles safe during travel.

An amateur barrel maker shares his advice to build your own wine barrel at home.

A reader shares plans for his homemade wine press.

Diamond bins, so called because of their orientation, are a simple storage option. I recommend building a diamond bin frame and making some horizontal shelves for holding wine in case boxes. (By