Kegging Wine Coolers

Something that really motivates me to brew is an event.  There’s a birthday party coming up and I’m going to take some kegs of beer.  One of the hardest parts about brewing is timing.  I wanted to attempt a wine for this party but didn’t have enough leeway by time I came up with that idea.  Wine cooler to the rescue.

I found these fast(er) fermenting fruit wine kits and thought it would be fun to try them in a keg.  It’s summertime, it’s a casual outdoor kid’s party (yes, I’m planning brew sessions around a kid’s birthday!), and I’m really into retro stuff nostalgic these days.  So, yep, I’m bringing wine coolers back!  Bust out your Jordache jeans and neon leg warmers.   I’m only doing one so I chose strawberry because that seemed like a flavor that would appeal to the most people.

This is my first foray into wine making and was surprised that wine doesn’t require “brewing” when you buy a kit.  The ingredients are usually juice, come in vacuum-sealed bags and, basically, you just add water then stir the crap out of it.  Brew day simplified!  Unfortunately, wine does require a little more attention after brew day.  Racking to a secondary fermentation vessel seems more important as does eliminating headspace.  Against my frugal judgement, I bought a plastic 6 gallon carboy because wine folks seem more adamant than beer folks that you can’t use a 6.5 gallon bucket.  I really think that’s more important in longer ferments than my wine cooler, but they were on sale and I want to try some more traditional wine recipes soon so I pulled the trigger.  Maybe I would’ve balked if I didn’t already own a siphon.

That’s where things stand now.  I’ll update once I have this bad boy in a keg and carbed up to share my final thoughts on it.  Of course, I’m anxious to get feedback from others at the party, too.  Something else new I want to try for this party is building a portable kegerator.  I’ll post about that adventure soon.