Topic: Build-It-Yourself
DIY Bird Net Applicator
FREEBird 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.
One-Stall Winery
MEMBERS ONLYAfter 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 in my garage, stored my bulk wine in a crawl space underneath my house (pumped in and out), and bottled it in the
The Mobile “Wall-Mount” Wine Opener
FREEIf 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.
Build a Better Sprayer
FREEWhen 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.
Design a Wine Cellar
MEMBERS ONLYAlthough most bottles of wine you purchase in the store are sold ready-to-drink, wines made with certain grapes can and will improve with age. That’s not the case for home winemakers, whose freshly bottled wines often require a minimum of a few months of bottle aging for white wines, and a year or more for
Vacuum Wine Corker
MEMBERS ONLYThe 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. I have been using a vacuum pump for racking wine/ starting a siphon therefore some of the hardware already existed. It looked like
Build a Temperature-Controlled Wine Storage Box
MEMBERS ONLYA home winemaker from California’s Sierra Foothills shares his design for an air-conditioned wine storage room he built for his garage.
Build Your Own Basket Press
MEMBERS ONLYBuild this basket press using HDPE plastic.
One Wall Winery: One World. One Winery. One Wall.
MEMBERS ONLYIf you have a free wall in your garage, you can have your entire winery organized there. See the plans by Steve Hughes.
Wine Cellar Build
FREEA reader’s basement renovation takes shape.
Lab Equipment: Storage Cabinet
FREEOver 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
Build a Wine Barrel Table
MEMBERS ONLYMaterials 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 or 4 wood screws 6.) small nail or tacks 7.) hammer 8.) jig saw (reciprocating saw) 9.) clean rags 10.) your favorite timber
Build a Ladder-Style Wine Rack
MEMBERS ONLYThere 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 design. They include flat shelves, display shelves, ladder racking, waterfall racking, diamond bins, radiused ladders, curved end shelves, end caps, and others. You’ve
Build a Carboy Cleaner
MEMBERS ONLYI 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 crustiness from within the carboy interior. Sure, a brush does a good job of cleaning the major gunk out, and it’s cheap, but
Build a Champagne Bottle Capper
MEMBERS ONLYRecently 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 if I’d be interested in making something similar, only this time one that was able to cap standard 750 ml champagne bottles. Of
Build a Backyard Vineyard Sprayer
MEMBERS ONLYParts 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 40-ft. (12 m) ¾-inch 300 psi sprayer hose In-line strainer 300 psi pressure regulator 200 psi pressure gauge with “T” fitting (6) sprayer
Build Your Own Destemmer-Crusher
FREEDon’t want to fork over the money it costs to buy a destemmer-crusher? Good with your hands? Try building this!
Wine To Go Layout
MEMBERS ONLYBuild your own wine carrying case to keep your bottles safe during travel.
How to Build a Barrel
MEMBERS ONLYAn amateur barrel maker shares his advice to build your own wine barrel at home.
Homemade Wine Press
MEMBERS ONLYA reader shares plans for his homemade wine press.
Building Diamond Bin Wine Racks
FREEDiamond 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
Build 3 Winemaking Projects
FREEBuild a cart to roll your fermenter around easily, a stainless racking cane, and cap plonker.
Building a Cool Cellar
MEMBERS ONLYI can still remember the days when my father served his wine straight from the “cellar.” It was really a cold room, which meant the temperature of the wine would follow our Montreal weather — very cold in the winter and hot in the summer. As I moved into an apartment, and later on into
Build a Filter Clamp: Projects
MEMBERS ONLYPlate filtration systems are popular among home winemakers. These systems use disposable filter plates with a filter selectivity that usually ranges from 0.5–6.0 microns. The filter plates must be changed every so often, a tedious chore that involves removing several wing bolts, six in the case of the popular Ferrari-style filter, to replace the filters.
Pressing Matters: Build a Wine Press
FREEPlan to make your own wine press