For a few bucks you can put together wine making supplies that are just as good as those you can spend a lot of money for at your local homebrew.
One of the bigger expenses in making wine involve the containers you ferment the must in. You could sink $20 in the nice 7.9gal fermentation bucket, but it's much cheaper to get a bucket elsewhere. Typically the 5 or 6 gallon buckets you can find at Home Depot are food grade, but you could call the manufacturer to make sure. DO NOT use any bucket that has been used to hold anything other than food products.
You can also do what I did: go to a bakery (Giant Eagle) and get one for FREE that used to hold icing for cakes.
Next, go to your local hardware store and pick up a "rubber grommet" with these dimensions:O.D. (Outside Diameter): 5/8"
I.D. (Inside Diameter): 3/8"
Drill a 1/2" hole (I'm pretty sure that's the right size..) in your lid, pop in the rubber grommet, and voilà: you have an airtight lid that will accommodate the standard airlock most people use for making wine. This lid looks EXACTLY like the one I bought at my local homebrew a few years back.
All in all, it cost me:
Rubber Grommet at Sears Hardware: 35¢
Airlock at local Homebrew: 90¢
Bucket at Giant Eagle's Bakery: Free
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Total = $1.25 / bucket
The only downside is that you might have trouble finding a bucket bigger than 5 gallons, because you need something at least 6 gallons to be able to fill a standard 5 gallon carboy after primary fermentation is over. I've been using most of two 4 gallon buckets (each holding a little more than 2.5gal) and combining them into the primary.
One possible solution is to fill a 5 gallon bucket as much as possible (leave at least a few inches; some air is necessary for primary fermentation), and after you siphon all the wine into the carboy, fill the carboy up with glass marbles until the wine is near to the top (boil the marbles in water first to sterilize them). You will end up with a little less than 5 gallons, but hopefully not too much. The trick is not to leave too much air in the top of your carboy, it will do bad things to your wine.
For a secondary jug, you're pretty much stuck paying the $25 or so at your local home brew if you want a big 5 gallon carboy, (unless you get lucky enough to find a carboy on craigslist like I did for $10.. search for "glass jar," "glass jars" etc.. sometimes people don't call them carboys).
However, if you like to do smaller batches (or I suppose you could use several of these combined to equal one 5 gallon carboy), here's a cheap solution:
If you are a practicing Catholic (woo hoo!), just ask your priest to save the empty wine bottles they use to hold Sacramental wine. One priest I know said he uses three (3x) 1 gallon jugs every week! The secular alternative is to buy that cheap wine at Giant Eagle in the same jugs and just drink the wine. That's lame though.
This option is even easier than the last: all you need is the right size drilled rubber stopper and an airlock from your local homebrew. Now the link says that the rubber stopper I have pictured (which is the one that showed up on my reciept) is 1 - 1/8" Top and 1 - 1/16" bottom, but I clearly measured it to be 1 - 1/4" top and 1" bottom. I'd just bring the bottle to your local homebrew and make sure you get one that fits.
All in all, it cost me:
No. 006 Drilled Rubber Stopper: 70¢
Airlock: 90¢
1 Gallon Jug (from my Church): Free!
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Total = $1.60 / Jug
Please post any corrections, experiences, or additional tips you may have!
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