saddlebronze
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Its been real dry here in the northeast so the Marquette is already at 22 brix. Everything else is in the teens. Taste is well balanced. Bring it in?
Marquette is already 22! What to do?
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I would let em hang as long as you can, that will help drop the TA (in most cases).
saddlebronze
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Thanks, that was the answer to my question, I struggle with the acid, so lower TA would be better.
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Let it get to 25 to 26 brix and the TA will drop quite dramatically but still be plenty high enough. Monitor the pH and don't let it get above about 3.5 or so.
saddlebronze
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Thanks guys. How do I test pH with such a small quantity of grapes. I have about 4 vines in each variety. I have a pH meter. Can I crush some up and add distilled water?
Water would skew the result if the sample size is small. Best to crush ~10 grapes into a small vial getting enough juice to cover the glass probe. Tilt the vial if you need to in order to cover the probe and let the reading stabilize for a few minutes.
saddlebronze
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I took some readings and they are at 22 brix and 3.1 pH. Where should the pH rise to at harvest?
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I repeat what I said above and let it ripen more. It has only been 3 days.......................
saddlebronze
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Thanks. Would rather deal with the acidity on the vine rather than in the lab.
saddlebronze
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Just an update. Marquette is now 26 brix and 3.3 pH. Must be getting close. The great weather continues.
You can always water it back down to 23-24 and add no tartaric. This would more than likely increase the pH (bring it up) and lower the TA. Could be a win-win depending on your numbers.
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That looks like it is ready to pick any time. I am finding the acids are a lot lower this year in general than usual. If you leave it longer it may go bad on you. We have had to rush a number of varieties as they started to break down in the hot weather of the last week. Today we picked Petite Amie and it was in great shape.
saddlebronze
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Thanks guys, I think tomorrow is the day! There is a tropical rain coming up the coast, don't want to get caught in that! Appreciate all the advice!
Hope it went well for you.
Similar to grapeman, the hot weather last week caused some problems with our Marquette. I was hoping to make it a few more days, but ended up picking today. 23.8 brix, 3.2 pH, 1.56 TA.
