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It occurred to me that I put a bunch of supplies in my cart @ MoreWine the other night, but never purchased. Got the rest of my goodies ordered today as well. VP41, Acti-ML, Lallzyme, OptiRed, tartaric acid and yeast/nutrient/starter. BM4X4 for the cab, D254 on the Petite Sirah and RP15 for the Zin and Syrah.
ordering lol. I buy at my local shop which is basically the only beer and wine store in the state of california period between LA and San Fran, thats not even a joke.
 
It occurred to me that I put a bunch of supplies in my cart @ MoreWine the other night, but never purchased. Got the rest of my goodies ordered today as well. VP41, Acti-ML, Lallzyme, OptiRed, tartaric acid and yeast/nutrient/starter. BM4X4 for the cab, D254 on the Petite Sirah and RP15 for the Zin and Syrah.

Same here. Need to inventory what I have and order what I need.
 
Just finished crushing 4 lugs premium brunello and 4 lugs premium petite syrah from Procacci. According to them the Brunello is old vine sangiovese.

The brunello fruit was nice all the way through.

Petite syrah fruit is nice dark dense clusters, 2-4 partial raisined clusters per lug. Many leaves.

Will get numbers later today or tomorrow. I did add enzymes.

Brunello pH 3.48 brix 23

Petite Syrah pH 3.82 brix 25

Will do TA in the morning
 
It occurred to me that I put a bunch of supplies in my cart @ MoreWine the other night, but never purchased. Got the rest of my goodies ordered today as well. VP41, Acti-ML, Lallzyme, OptiRed, tartaric acid and yeast/nutrient/starter. BM4X4 for the cab, D254 on the Petite Sirah and RP15 for the Zin and Syrah.

For once I was organized this year and have everything I need. Going back to RC212 on mine, CH16 MLB.
 
Finally decided on this years grapes, going with 4 lugs Zinderella OVZ, 4 lugs of Cab, 4 lugs Merlot and will go with 100 lbs of Concord from Lake Erie region when available in October. Super pumped this year because I picked up a crusher/destemmer. My dad and I destemmed by hand last year and it took all afternoon so decided against that going forward. Also grabbed and started a bucket of Gewurztraminer yesterday when picking up the C/D.
 
Finally decided on this years grapes, going with 4 lugs Zinderella OVZ, 4 lugs of Cab, 4 lugs Merlot and will go with 100 lbs of Concord from Lake Erie region when available in October. Super pumped this year because I picked up a crusher/destemmer. My dad and I destemmed by hand last year and it took all afternoon so decided against that going forward. Also grabbed and started a bucket of Gewurztraminer yesterday when picking up the C/D.

I looked hard at the Zinderella grapes. Good luck with it all.
 
Just had my first 2 bathces tested with commercial equipment. Syrah brix 26.7 ph 4.08, Zin brix 22.7 ph 3.99. The winemaker told me to take them both down to 3.65 - 3.70. We were talking about chapitalizing the Zin but I think I'm going to keep it where it's at. It's one of the wineries I help at on occasion and while I was there we crushed and pressed 3 ton of Petite Manseng.
 
Just had my first 2 bathces tested with commercial equipment. Syrah brix 26.7 ph 4.08, Zin brix 22.7 ph 3.99. The winemaker told me to take them both down to 3.65 - 3.70. We were talking about chapitalizing the Zin but I think I'm going to keep it where it's at. It's one of the wineries I help at on occasion and while I was there we crushed and pressed 3 ton of Petite Manseng.

Hmmm. If your Zin is at 3.99 and you're doing an MLF, what are you shooting for as far as a starting pH? I know that an MLF will lower your pH, but I don't know by how much.
 
Just had my first 2 bathces tested with commercial equipment. Syrah brix 26.7 ph 4.08, Zin brix 22.7 ph 3.99. The winemaker told me to take them both down to 3.65 - 3.70. We were talking about chapitalizing the Zin but I think I'm going to keep it where it's at. It's one of the wineries I help at on occasion and while I was there we crushed and pressed 3 ton of Petite Manseng.

Did you get any juice out of the Petite Manseng?
 
You didn't mention what the TA's were........... make sure you don't drive your TA too high out of range to get the pH down. You can manage a higher pH easier than you can drink a sour wine with too much acid in it...............
 
Just had my first 2 bathces tested with commercial equipment. Syrah brix 26.7 ph 4.08, Zin brix 22.7 ph 3.99. The winemaker told me to take them both down to 3.65 - 3.70. We were talking about chapitalizing the Zin but I think I'm going to keep it where it's at. It's one of the wineries I help at on occasion and while I was there we crushed and pressed 3 ton of Petite Manseng.

And jumping right into it! Crossing that bridge which has been discussed at length recently.

Going from 4.08 and 3.99 to 3.65-3.7 ish might require a lot of tartaric. And might jack up the TA in the process. Once you get TA numbers I’m interested to know how adjustments go. Because even if it’s not a focus, you still don’t wanna send TA through the roof.
Also- if going all the way to 3.7, why stop there? Just a touch more to hit the magic number. Then hope for the best after MLF.
This is the part of winemaking that separates the men from the boys. I dig it.
 
We had 2 bins of Cab Franc we just crushed Saturday. Both were 25 brix and 3.7 pH. We added tartaric to get to 3.5 (1 pound per bin). Assuming it will climb back to 3.7 post MLF. Also, on both bins, the brix climbed up to 26 after sitting for a day. But the real scare was when the meter read 2.8 after the first stir following the tartaric! You really need to give it time to integrate.
 
We had 2 bins of Cab Franc we just crushed Saturday. Both were 25 brix and 3.7 pH. We added tartaric to get to 3.5 (1 pound per bin). Assuming it will climb back to 3.7 post MLF. Also, on both bins, the brix climbed up to 26 after sitting for a day. But the real scare was when the meter read 2.8 after the first stir following the tartaric! You really need to give it time to integrate.

Absolutely, plus you don't know the buffering capacities so you really have to wait a little. I always use the 1/2 to 3/4 rule when making additions.
 
Just kick it old school and go by color change

If your borderline color blind it just doesn't work. What's even worse is trying to do a manual titration. Just got off the phone with Vinmetrica. They had to walk me through rebuting the meter. Seems OK now but they recommended I do a final test with cream of tartar. See below:

pH test with cream of tartar

A quick way to check your calibration and pH accuracy is to measure the pH of a saturated solution of cream of tartar which has a pH of 3.56 at 25 degrees celsius:
a. Get pure cream of tartar (grocery store stuff is fine, provided it’s pure), or even better is reagent grade potassium hydrogen tartrate, also known as potassium acid tartrate or potassium bitartrate. Call it KHT for short.
b. Place about 1/4 teaspoon of KHT in 20 mL of distilled water. Mix well for about 30 seconds. You want to be sure the solution is saturated, i.e., everything that can dissolve, has dissolved. There should be some undissolved solid left.
c. Decant or filter the solution off the solids.
d. This solution has a standard pH of 3.56 at 25 degrees C (78 degrees F). It should be within 0.02 pH of this value at temperatures from 20 to 30 degrees Celsius. Discard after 24 hours.
 

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