Interested in homemade wine? Excellent! If you want to start making your own wine at home, you’re going to need a few items first. From containers and tools to ingredients and more, we’re going to be taking a look at all the homemade wine making equipment and supplies that you need to ensure that you reach success and produce a quality batch of wine.
Although there are many choices for each item, of course, below I’m going to show you the very best I’ve ever used throughout the years. I’ve personally tested and used all of them so I can vouch for their quality and out of all the competition, they’re in my honest opinion the very best you can get.
As there are quite a few items, I’ve made an index to more clearly guide you and also so you can simply click on the one you’re looking for and skip right to it. Without further ado, let’s take a look!
Equipment Index
Supplies, Ingredients and Additives Index
Below each category you’ll find my personal recommendations on the best wine making equipment for sale on the market. It might be a single item, two or more, depending on how many great choices there are for that particular item. By simply clicking on an item’s name or image, you can get the wine supplies online through amazon in a quick and easy way.
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These are all the necessary pieces of equipment you need in order to make wine at home. Although this homemade wine equipment pieces are all essential, the quantity of some items will vary according to how much wine you want to make.
Some categories have more than one item listed because there are other competing options that are great as well.
Although I much prefer wood or glass to actually store wine, food-grade plastic containers are great for other types of use such as racking the wine, moving it or to simply mix other ingredients. If you need to use them as wine fermenters for home use, you can, although I highly recommend that you use glass or wood instead to achieve a higher quality product.
With a completely food-grade plastic body, 5 gallon capacity and tightly screwing lid, the Gamma2 is a fantastic option. It’s also very affordable and comes in a variety of colors, making it overall a great choice if you want a safe, high-quality plastic container.
Another solid option, this is a more classic style of plastic bucket that has a regular lid instead. It’s made of food-grade plastic, has a 5 gallon capacity and it’s quite sturdy too, as expected.
Due to the regular lid, it’s even more affordable than the one above and it comes in a set of 3.
Glass containers such as carboys or demijohns are excellent options to store wine. They’re completely safe, easy to clean, give you precious visibility of the liquid and they last a lifetime if handled with care. They’re also capable of being covered with airlocks, making them invaluable for fermentation.
This 6.5 gallon glass carboy by Northern Brewer is a classic choice that’s both affordable and durable. It comes nicely packaged, it’s slightly lager than the norm and it’s crafted with care, making it a high quality carboy that can be used as either a fermenter (with an airlock) or simply as storage.
Just like the one above, this is a rugged and nicely crafted carboy that’s available at a very affordable price.
The only difference is that it holds 6 gallons instead of 6.5.
This beautifully made demijohn by Home Brew Ohio is very well crafted (no imperfections), durable and inexpensive as well. It holds the regular demijohn quantity of 1 gallon and includes a poly-material cap.
Another great demijohn, this unit is extremely similar to the one above (same capacity, classic design and durable) but it doesn’t include a cap.
Giving your wine an unmatched touch of flavor, complexity and aroma, wooden barrels are the best choice when it comes to aging and storing wine. Most people use them to hold the wine for the second stage of fermentation, to age the wine after being completed or to simply store it. The correct size for you will depend on the quantity of wine you want to produce – for beginners the 5 to 20 liter ones will do but for advanced or professional home wine makers the larger ones that hold around 115 to 225 liters (30 to 60 gallons) will be a better choice. The type of wood is up to personal preference but oak is always a fantastic, reliable choice.
These gorgeous 115 liter (30 Gal) oak wood wine barrels are an excellent choice if you want to produce larger batches of high quality wine. They’re genuine, sturdily built, give your wine a complex touch of delicious flavor and aroma plus if handled with care they’ll last a lifetime.
When using wooden barrels, make sure to always fill them up with water first to test for leaks. If any do appear, let the barrel soak and swell for a day in order for the leaks to stop. If the soaking doesn’t stop the leaks or if they’re severe (uncommon), you can cover them with tallow to completely solve the issue. After this, you’re ready to use it!
The price is also very attractive for the quality you’re getting, which is always appreciated.
This handcrafted white oak wine barrel is a smaller option that still delivers great quality at a fantastic price. It’s beautifully crafted, has a rugged construction and even comes with accessories to boot like an horizontal stand, a cork bung and a spigot. You can also get your very own logo printed on it (your name, brand or anything else you want).
It’s also available in other sizes from 1 liter all the way up to 20 liters.
Yet another solid choice, this wooden wine barrel is very similar to the one above but it allows you to customize its appearance (black steel, brass or silver rings). It’s made from golden oak, comes with all the same accessories as the previous one and it’s equally as affordable to boot.
This one is only available in two capacities – 5 liters or 1.
Absolutely essential to achieve successful fermentation, airlocks allow you to cover your fermenter containers – protecting them from oxygen, dust, debris, etc… while also letting them breathe which prevents them from exploding due to the expansion of gas. They’re super affordable, easy to use and extremely effective.
Featuring a very effective twin bubble airlock, excellent construction quality and a super attractive price, these airlocks by Home Brew Ohio are some of the best you can get in my view. They come in a pack of two.
Funnels make moving the wine or filling up containers a breeze. Although the best size depends on which containers you use, it’s always best to stick with 5 to 10″ ones as they make the whole process easier and faster.
This 5″ stainless steel funnel by Bellemain is well crafted, resistant to rust, durable and extremely easy to clean. It comes with its own removable strainer and it’s very, very affordable as well.
Very large and deep, this jumbo plastic funnel makes filling up larger containers, like wooden barrels, a breeze.
It’s nicely finished, resistant, food-grade and also extremely cheap.
Useful when you’ve got some debris that you want to quickly remove from your wine, for example, these straining meshes are always good to have around in case you need them.
This large, reusable drawstring strainer is big enough to fit nearly any purpose and it’s fine enough to filter out all the bad parts of wine (seeds, stem parts, other residues). It’s also easy to clean, durable and fairly priced.
You can’t go wrong with the traditional cheesecloth. It’s resilient to use, easy to wash, very simple to use, versatile and is super fine – filtering out very small debris and residue.
Another bonus is the incredibly inexpensive price.
Used to easily and quickly move wine and even more importantly – to rack it (refine it by transferring it from one container to another, leaving residue behind) – siphoning tubes are essential wine making tools. While a plain plastic tube will do (you just have to use gravity to your advantage and kickstart the transfer by sucking the tube), the modern options that have pumps are better as they allow you to siphon with success regardless of container placement and without having to suck the air out first.
The awesome “Plumber’s Siphon Pro” siphoning set is extremely well crafted, works like a charm and it’s made to last. It comes with a 9 feet long plastic tube, a brass weight tip, a hose extender and most importantly – a pump that you can use to kickstart the process with ease.
It makes quick work out of siphoning and it’s very affordable too so you can’t miss it.
Fermtech’s auto siphon is another superb choice if you want an easy to use, effective, pump-action siphoning system. It comes with 6 feet of tubing, a clamp and of course, the pump itself.
It’s also inexpensive, like the one above, making it a solid alternative.
No wine making process is complete without the perfect finishing step – bottling. Choosing a high quality set of glass wine bottles is crucial to properly store your wine with safety and class. While the colors of the bottles vary a bit, the most popular ones are clear, green, red or dark. Another aspect to consider is the neck/mouth’s diameter as it will dictate which size of cork you can use to properly seal the bottles – the most widely used sizes are #8 and #9 so that’s what we’re going to run with!
Featuring the slim, elegant appearance of the traditional 750 ml wine bottle coupled with high quality glass and necks that work perfectly with #8 and #9 corks, these beautiful glass wine bottles are a classic that you can’t go wrong with.
They come in sets of 12, making them economical, and are also available in a variety of colors – from clear to green, brandy and more.
Out of all the glass wine bottles I’ve ordered, these are by far the best.
Take a look at a few examples of the other colors below:
Green:
In order for corks to be any good they need to be made with great materials, have a robust craftsmanship and be adequately sized for your bottles. The ones below fit all the criteria as well as being very inexpensive. The main difference between the #8 and #9 is their width – the #8 has 22mm and the #9 has 24mm – this means that the #8 is easier to seal, requiring only a hand tool, and fits nicely while the #9 creates a much tighter seal that can store the wine for longer but it needs a floor corker to properly fit the bottle (as it’s a bit harder to push it inside). Both options are great, it just depends on how long you want to store your wine. In general the #8 is used to store the wine for less than 2 years while the #9 is used to store for 2 years and longer.
These #9 corks are not only good looking – even featuring a nice grape design – but they’re also straight, very robust and attractively priced. They come in a pack of 100 and will fit all classic bottles, like the ones we’ve seen above.
Another great choice, these #8 straight corks are equally as well-crafted as the ones above in both quality and design except their size is different (#8 instead of #9).
They also come in a pack of 100 and are very affordable.
As mentioned above, this wine bottling equipment makes the corking phase much easier and faster while also providing a high quality seal that stores wine for longer. Both of them – the floor and hand tools – work with the #8 and #9 although the floor one is more suited to fitting the #9 and the hand one is more suited to fitting the #8. Both of them were invented by the Portuguese so bless them for revolutionizing this part of the process (and many others, they’re excellent wine makers).
Simple to use, efficient and extremely powerful, this classic Portuguese floor corker by Home Brew Ohio makes corking the bottles a breeze. It’s compact enough to easily carry around while also being sturdy, made to last and packing enough of a punch to fit #9 corks without effort.
The steel construction quality is bar none and it’s very easy to use. You simply adjust the base below to fit the bottle’s height, insert the neck in the top part and punch the cork in by using the lever.
It’s also impressively affordable and a must-have if you’re going to use #9 corks, especially if you have a large quantity of bottles.
This nifty little hand corker makes corking much easier and faster while also being extremely compact and inexpensive. Even though it’s more geared towards the #8 cork, it can also handle #9 if you wish (although it’s a bit harder) and it’s easy to use in both situations.
It’s also extremely well-made, resembling the original ones from Portugal.
If you want to give a high-end, professional touch to your home wine batch, nothing beats fitting your bottle necks with shrink capsules. From their charming color to the smooth texture, these often overlooked wine making accessories take your selection to a new level. They’re very easy to use (you fit them over the corked bottle neck and then apply heat either from hot water or air) and they’re extremely inexpensive too.
Although you can choose whichever color you like the best, these two are my favorites due to their classy, sober look:
These come in packs of 30 and their smooth, matte black coloring looks excellent.
These come in packs of 100 and offer a more glossy metallic finish coupled with an attractive red color.
A Hydrometer is by far one of the most essential tools of any winemaker. By taking a sample of the wine and placing the hydrometer in it, you can quickly find out the wine’s Specific Gravity, Potential Alcohol Percentage (ABV) and Brix Balling level. These are all crucial readings if you want to perfect your wine as they tell you if anything needs to be adjusted. The most popular reading is, of course, the potential alcohol percentage as it will give you a solid idea of how potent your wine will be!
Well-crafted, durable, easy to use and highly accurate, this fantastic Hydrometer gives you everything you need at a great price. The clear markings make it effortless to read and if handled with care it will last a lifetime.
As a bonus, it also comes with a set of useful accessories included such as a handy test jar, a cloth and a hard-case as well.
If you’re going to be making wine in large batches, having a destemmer is beyond essential. It does everything a simple crusher does with one huge difference – it removes the stems. If you want to have a wine making machine for home use, or even professional, this is the one to get.
The premise is simple – you place it above your preferred fermenter (has to be fairly large), drop your grapes in it and then run it – manually or automatically – and it will quickly crush them while separating and removing the stems. This way, the juice and valuable grape skins will drop below into what will become the must while the useless stems get separated into the side. This saves you a ton of work and time, making it unmissable if you want to produce larger quantities of wine.
This awesome motorized destemmer makes the whole process a breeze. It’s made in Italy and the design is classic, as expected, featuring stainless steel construction coupled with a potent 1 HP motor that absolutely demolishes the grapes (capacity of 3300 lbs per hour) while the destemmer inside makes sure that all stems get discarded to the side. The craftsmanship is outstanding as well, featuring safely rounded edges, perfectly finished detailing and a strong fit on every component. It’s also easy to install, use and clean.
Although the price might keep beginners away, advanced wine makers will no doubt see the unbeatable value behind it. It’s an indispensable machine.
This is the simpler, manual version of the destemmer shown above. It features the same amount of quality and durability with only one big difference – you’ve got to manually rotate the crank to crush the grapes.
While this means that you’ll have to expand much more effort, it also comes with a heavy reduction in price to nearly half of the one above.
Here you’ll find every ingredient and additive you need to successfully take your wine from start to finish and ensure that you end up with a high quality result. Some of these home wine making supplies are essential ingredients while others are optional. Let’s take a look at them all.
As expected, you’re going to need some quality wine grapes. They’re the most crucial part of homemade wine supplies and if you haven’t got your own, always make sure to get them from a trustworthy source that takes care of them properly and delivers them fresh!
There are many varieties to choose from so it’s all up to you – you can make a pure wine or mix and match, be creative! Just remember that while white varieties of grape are commonly used to make white whine, they can also be used to make red. It’s not the grapes that make the difference but the process – you can read more here.
Some people also use wine concentrate to make a batch of wine quickly (either store-bought or from a quality source) and others use different fruit like raspberries. You can also read more of these homemade wine recipes here.
When it comes to homemade wine supplies, wine yeast is among the most important. While wild yeast (naturally occurring) can be enough to ferment wines to completion, it’s mostly a blessing of wine-making regions that have been producing wine for decades (making it much more common in the air and on the grapes). To ensure that wine ferments properly, most winemakers turn to the reliability of cultured yeast which you can buy and then use on your wine with the added bonus of knowing just how powerful it is, among other details.
Now, there are a lot of cultured wines to choose from, as you can see on my personal picks for the best yeast for wine making list, but there is one that’s incredibly versatile, potent and overall just an excellent choice for any type of wine be it red, white, sparkling or whatever else you want to produce. It’s the Lalvin EC-1118.
The popular and excellent Lalvin EC-1118 is a fantastic wine yeast that you simply can’t go wrong with. It’s super versatile (able to be used for any type of wine from red to sparkling and even other drinks like cider), outstandingly reliable and it’s very powerful, capable of working relentlessly until alcohol levels of 18%. This ensures that you get the most out of your wine without leaving any sugar behind that could be used to make more alcohol.
Now due to it consuming sugar and taking your wine to high alcoholic levels, it will result in a dry wine. Most people love it but if you want to give it a sweeter edge you can always either stop fermentation before it’s complete or add sugar to balance it out.
It’s a superb choice that doesn’t disappoint.
In either tablet form, dry powder or even as a liquid, metabisulfite is an essential substance in winemaking. It acts as both a safe sanitizing agent for bottles, instruments and anything else that you need and it’s also a powerful anti-oxidation agent that prevents your wine from getting spoiled.
The classic campden tablets are a dry, tablet-style form of metabisulfite. They’re popular due to how easy they are to use in both quantity and format.
They can be dissolved in water to sanitize items like corks and bottles and they can also be dropped straight into the must to act as an anti-oxidation agent.
This is the dry powder form of metabisulfite. While it’s slightly harder to measure in this form, you have the advantage of it being much easier to use in larger quantities as well as offering better value for the price.
Optional Ingredients:
Sugar is used to give your wine a sweet edge if it gets too dry and it’s also used to help kickstart yeast if needed. Any type of sugar will do although the rougher forms like turbinated or yellow will give a distinct flavor to the wine if used in enough quantity so keep that in mind.
Any brand of sugar will do, this is just a very good value for the price option.
Tartaric acid is a naturally occurring acid in fruit that is used to balance the pH of the wine when needed. When a wine’s pH is too high, it starts to become susceptible to bacteria so tartaric acid is used to lower the pH and keep the wine from getting spoiled. You can measure the wine’s pH very quickly by using a pH testing kit.
A wine’s pH is usually around 3 to 4 with the sweet spot for reds being 3.3 to 3.6 and the sweet spot for whites being 3.0 to 3.4. If you measure yours and it’s above those numbers, then you’ve gotta use tartaric acid to bring it down to acceptable levels.
LD Carlson’s tartaric acid is an excellent choice in both quality and price.
Diammonium Phosphate is a yeast nutrient that’s either used to strengthen the yeast you currently have to ensure that it can carry the fermentation process to completion or used to kickstart a stuck fermentation (due to the current yeast having a low alcohol tolerance and stopping fermentation at a lower level than you’d like).
Although it’s mostly used with wild yeast due to its unpredictable nature, it’s also handy to have laying around even if you use cultured yeast (just in case).
The classic D.A.P. form, in a large bag, of high quality and at a great price.
Fermax’s D.A.P. is also another great choice.
Yet another solid option that also combines springcell and magnesium to make fermentation faster.
Wine tannin is used to give a drier, more bitter taste to the wine. It’s especially useful when the skin’s thickness of the grapes that you used – where tannin comes from – is lacking and as such doesn’t offer the wine a more bitter taste that so many people like.
LD Carlson’s wine tannin is of high quality, large quantity and very affordable.
Golden raisins are used to add body and sweetness to the wine. If yours is lacking a bit of both, drop in a few golden raisins and they’ll improve the wine in both aspects.
These are a great option but it’s always best if you can get them fresh and by the pound instead.
Bananas are used to add body to the wine when it’s severely lacking it but due to the level of difficulty of the operation, they’re better used by experts. If you’re a beginner, disregard these completely as there are much easier ways to achieve the same result. Also, in my personal opinion, you really shouldn’t resort to using bananas anyway as they lower the overall quality of the wine.
Conclusion
And there you have it, a complete list of equipment needed for making wine at home. From tools to items and ingredients, everything you need from beginning to end is up there. All the products recommended here have been tried and tested by me and out of the dozens upon dozens that I’ve used over the years, these are the very best in my opinion. If you want a simpler set of equipment and supplies that’s more aimed at beginners, you can always get a wine making kit.
Thank you for reading and be sure to leave a comment if you have any questions – I’ll be here to help!