Ph meter

I just bought one of these from eBay for 14. I'm looking forward to trying.

pH-009 IA Pen Type pH Meter Digital Tester Hydro From US

Someone on here said it works well.

A pH tester is the one piece of equipment I dont have yet - mostly because I dont know how the pH affects the wine, nor do I know what to do if the pH is too high or too low -

I guess I should buckle up and do my homework.

Yes Captain it is a very important tool to have. I recommend that you preview Morewines free manual. It does a great job explaining much of what you need to know and is written in a very straight forward manner. Here is a link.

http://www.morewinemaking.com/public/pdf/wredw.pdf

I did a tutorial on ph and how to use a ph meter. They should still be on here.

Simple and easy to use yet it can help you create better wine by understanding a few basics.

I love mine.

I agree strongly with djrockinsteve about the usefulness of pH meters but mine (a Hanna) can be a pig to calibrate. I may be wrong but I work with the assumption that even if it is out of spec each time I turn mine on, I am looking for a rough estimation and not precision to the third decimal place, so I calibrate mine infrequently or only if I am going to be testing a number of batches. If the reading I get is 3.5 and it should be 3.7 or 3.3, I am not going to worry. Or should I?

As much as we do no you need not worry if you are off a bit. I do not adjust for temperatures when I work with my hydrometer and even though my Hanna does adjust for temp. I don't nit pick.

Bottom line is what are you looking for and are you happy with the results you are getting. With this being said you don't realize how great all of you are capable of making by following a few guidelines. By using the correct tools and being reasonably close you can turn out outstanding wines.

If you plan to enter your wines in competition or sell them then yes you need to calibrate often and take excellent notes to replicate your wines every time.

I searched for the tutorials on my iPhone here but couldn't find them. I'll look again and if I find them I'll post a link.

I have this exact same meter.
Bought it in fall/12 and it seems to do a good but basic job.
Easy to calibrate but I suggest to calibrate using both PH 7 and PH 4.1 buffering solutions.

BernardSmith said:

If the reading I get is 3.5 and it should be 3.7 or 3.3, I am not going to worry. Or should I?

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Depends on what your end goal is. If it's to determine the amount of SO2 needed to protect your wine, it is not accurate enough. Let's assume that you're looking for 0.8mg/L molecular SO2.

At a pH of 3.3 you need 25mg/L free SO2.
At a pH of 3.7 you need 63mg/L free SO2.

Big difference there.

Does a ph meter relate to so2? I thought it was un bonded acid?

It relates in a sense on determing the amount of meta you need to add.

I know what I'm going to do today. Read about ph meters.

Runningwolf said:

It relates in a sense on determing the amount of meta you need to add.

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Potassium sorbate is also more effective as pH drops.

I would suggest being WITHIN .1 of your target. There is a difference from 3.5 to 3.6 and so I'd say any beyond .1 and you might get in trouble with wine stability and taste. I keep mine >.05, but I am making wine for sale. If you keep the probe wet, clean with a cleaning solution occasionally and calibrate it every month or two, it will work very well.

IMO, pH is MORE important than total acid (ta).

http://www.winemakermag.com/stories/article/indices/29-ph/547-phiguring-out-ph

Learned a lot.

I've always said a cheap pH meter is better than no pH meter.

I'm thinking if you are buying this meter than chances are good you have no way of measuring SO2 and are going by the method of adding k-meta every 90 days. If so then not knowing the exact pH isn't all that important and +/- 0.1 will work for now.

Once you get really hooked on making wine (and you will) than you will want to invest in something like the Vinmetrica SC-300 analyzer ($352) good for pH, acid and SO2 testing.

Myself I went the cheaper route and made my own A/O tester for SO2 testing and I use a Milwaukee pH55 meter for pH and acid testing (around $120 total). If I had to do it over I'd have gotten the pH56 meter for an extra $20 just because it reads one hundreds where the pH55 only reads tenths.

I'm cutting back to only making about 6 three gallon batches of wine a year so I can't justify the cost of the SC-300 at this time.

So....Midwest Vinter mentioned "If you keep the probe wet"; I've had my Hanna meter for a few years now, use the cleaning and cal solutions as required but here is my question concerning keeping the probe wet. It seems every time I go to use the probe (several times every 2~3 months), the probe tip is dry. I always place cleaning solution in the soft plastic end cap and then push the cap onto the probe. Should I store the probe in the vertical position completely submerged in a bottle of cleaning solution??? What methods and techniques do others out there use to "keep the probe wet"??

The pH meters usually have a little sponge in the cap to keep everything moist. I've never had much luck with that as I usually find the sponge has dried out between uses. I stole a little spice jar from the kitchen (shhh) that fits my meter perfect. I just put the meter in and fill with pH4 solution and cover the opening with saran wrap.

Thanks Chiumanfu for that tip...I'm always worried about knocking over my bottle holding the probe in the solution and evaporation. Maybe a bottle in a bottle...I'll keep trying things. Thanks.

One thing I never hear anything about is this... What size of a sample do you feel is best for a PH meter test? I normaly take about 150ml when testing with a meter.