Reddit mentions of Automatic Temperature Compensation 0-32% Brix Refractometer Beer Wine CNC Fruit by Ade Advanced Optics

Refractometer deal will start at 6pm

Modern Homebrew Recipes Book will start around 730pm

Depends on the yeast. Most wine yeast has an alcohol tolerance of 14%+. You can use this calculator here. This assumes you know how sweet your grapes are. Do you use a hydrometer or refractometer to measure the sweetness of your grapes or the must before you pitch the yeast?

Using the calculator you would 1) check the Target Volume box and enter 2 gallons, 2) check the first ingredients (Additional Sugars #1) box and enter grapes (15.9% sugar is default which is okay to start with, but good wine grapes picked at peak sugar can be 19-25% sugar), 3) check the box for Additional Sugar #2, enter honey and put in cups. Click anywhere else will calculate the Target Gravity (leave unchecked). Using your numbers, potential alcohol is only 11% and most wine yeast will ferment that bone dry (ie not sweet at all).

Hard to say how much additional honey to add to get a sweet wine without knowing your grape sugar content. If your grapes are 16% sugar, 6 cups of honey will raise the potential to 16% alcohol if the yeast consume all the sugar, but often they stall around 14%, leaving residual sugar. With 6 cups of honey
, the starting gravity might be 1.124, as read by a hydrometer.

At the bottom of the calculator is "Potential Alcohol Conversion". Here you would enter 1.124 as the start, and keep supplying numbers in the finishing gravity until the alcohol is ~14%, and that number would be 1.018, which is on the high end of semisweet/low end of sweet wine.

THis is not hard and fast as yeast will sometime go over their declared alcohol tolerance (leaving you with a dry and very boozy wine), or below the tolerance for a number of reasons, leaving you with a a really sweet and lower than 14% alcohol wine.

So the question is, do you know what kind of grapes you have and do you measure the sweetness?

I picked up this kit for a little under $100 after shipping. If you are not on an extreme budget then spend the extra penny and get this one. The nice thing about these kits as well, is that they give you a recipe for your first batch so you dont have to buy one on the side. It took about a week to show up and like /u/rumham1985 said you'll need to get a kettle with a lid (depending on if the kettle comes with it) and if you want to know the ABV (Alcohol By Volume) you can pick up a hydrometer and tube or refractometer.

Listed are the other items I picked up aside from the starter kit:

• 24 qt stock pot
  
  
• Lid for 24qt stock pot
  
  
• Refractometer
  
  If you have Amazon Prime you can get free 2 day shipping on those products. If you are currently a college student you get 6 months of free prime service so take advantage of that if you can.
  
  In the near future I will be investing on supplies to build a wort chiller using this tutorial which shouldnt cost more than 30$ and maybe after that work up on buying a mini fridge and temperature controller to help keep a stable fermenting temperature.

Ice cream is chemistry. You have to test the amount of water in rhubarb if you are going to get it right and avoid ice, and you need to also use a stabilizer like xantham gum or guar gum + an exact calculation of sugar to balance the freezing temperature of the water. You can use a refractometer to test the water level of the rhubarb (it will always change). https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008562GD0/ref=s9_acsd_simh_hd_bw_bQc80x_c_x_w?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=merchandised-search-3&pf_rd_r=CASB0D5HB110TZ3KMYVP&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=f7e00e61-c7da-537f-bf2c-085c9051d19f&pf_rd_i=393272011

if you are doing 1 gal kits then get a refractometer. (http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B008562GD0) It uses less of the beer to take a measurement. I use this calculator to convert from brix to SG - it includes correcting for alcohol since it factors in the OG to the calculations. THere is also a spreadsheet available. http://seanterrill.com/2012/01/06/refractometer-calculator/

Spectrometer: $13,125 - A device for measuring wavelengths of light over a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Refractometer: $30 - Used to determine the sugar content in a liquid.