Fermentation location and temp control

[HapaShawn]

We are on day 1 in our first batch of attempting to make wine and will be adding yeast tonight. The grapes are Hungarian wine grapes grown in southern California. We have two types, both unknown but white. The harvest was not as good as it could have been but we managed to collect 3 gallons of juice.

The concern now is temperature swing from day to day as it is hot where we live and there isn't AC at the moment. We may just install a window unit in the bedroom and ferment in there.

Please share if you know or have tried creative ideas on keeping the must temp between 65-75 degrees. We are currently adding frozen ice inside drinking water bottles to keep it from rising above 75 degrees.

Köszönöm szépen!

 

[Vertumnus]

If you want creative, I have tried wrapping my primary in emergency blankets in order to reflect the heat both from the outside coming in and to have the heat of the fermentation reflected back into the must (this was in May in western WA, where it's cool). It was somewhat effective, but I don't know how it would work in keeping it cool, since my intention was the opposite

 

[bkisel]

Maybe this will give you some ideas...

Not must but kept some bulk aging carboys cool last summer by placing them in cat litter boxes (new plastic ones) filled them with water, kept recycling cold packs into the water. Placed old tee shirts over the carboys and into the water which resulted in, I believe, some wicking and resultant evaporation cooling. I'd guess my bulk aging wine temp was brought down around 8-10F degrees or so.

 

[DoctorCAD]

.... I'd guess my bulk aging wine temp was brought down around 810F degrees or so.

WOW!!! That will take it to -730 Degrees!

 

[Geronimo]

Maybe this will give you some ideas...

Not must but kept some bulk aging carboys coll last summer by placing them in cat litter boxes (new plastic ones) filled them with water, kept recycling cold packs into the water. Placed old tee shirts over the carboys and into the water which resulted in, I believe, some wicking and resultant evaporation cooling. I'd guess my bulk aging wine temp was brought down around 810F degrees or so.

I always use my ice cube coolers. These were made originally for lager beer. I can hold a perfect 70 for fermentation and a perfect 50 for cold conditioning with little effort. It's best in a basement with a floor drain... much easier to let some water out and then add ice or hot water.

 

[salcoco]

add a fan to the technique expressed by bkisel to aid in wicking. will keep the carboy between 60-65 deg.

 

[bkisel]

WOW!!! That will take it to -730 Degrees!

LOL I thought I had edited that...

 

[HapaShawn]

I like the cooler idea the best and we have gone this route. We added water filled to the same level as the juice in the containers and have been maintaining 20C (68F) per my uncle in Hungary who makes wine from the same fruit by adding frozen bottles of water twice daily. It's working great and we tasted it. Looks like we are on our way to wine and not vinegar!

Thanks for the help!

 

[bkisel]

I like the cooler idea the best and we have gone this route. We added water filled to the same level as the juice in the containers and have been maintaining 20C (68F) per my uncle in Hungary who makes wine from the same fruit by adding frozen bottles of water twice daily. It's working great and we tasted it. Looks like we are on our way to wine and not vinegar!

Thanks for the help!

Hey, that's great! Thanks for coming back with an update.

 

[ErikM]

learn from beer brewing colleagues

I have been looking for a freezer or refrigerator that would fit the variety of my needs. Not finding one, and needing to prepare for some suavignon blanc juice headed my way, I looked to my brewing friends for idea.

Two words- Wort Chiller

Pictures are below/attached. The short story is that I used the wort chiller, and a submersible fountain pump, an ice chest, and a Johnson Controls temperature controller. I submersed the wort chiller in the juice, and circulated ice water through the wort chiller. The water pump on/off was controlled by the Johnson controller, set for 57deg F, with the temperature sensor submersed in the juice. It worked great.

Hints-
> The pump was $9 at Northern Tools. A 90gal/hour fountain pump.
> Wrap the fermentation bucket in blankets or large towels to insulate it from room temp.
> I had to wire the Johnson controller. I bought an extension cord with 14 gauge wire and cut the plug and outlet ends off and used them. Another $9. Bought the controller on Amazon.
> The controller temp sensor was crimped on the sensor wire. I used silicon caulk to seal it.

It worked great. It held the temperature of the juice to +/- 1 deg. I used about 20 pounds of ice per day. $4/day from Walmart. Fermentation completed in about 2 1/2 weeks.

 

[HapaShawn]

Secondary fermentation with airlocks have been moved to a lower maintenance temperature controlled wine cellar, aka a wine refrigerator. It has been there for 2 days now and can maintain 20C or slightly under. It does fluctuate some but it's not bad. Does anyone object to this?

 

[HapaShawn]

I've been in cold stabilization now for just about 2-3 months. The wine is very tart, so my acid level is off, right? I have to add tartaric acid to correct?

 

[cintipam]

Hi

unless you actually check your PH you won't know if your acid is off. If it tastes tart it could be many things. Young wine tastes tart in general, and mellows over time. Sometimes with a red adding oak will curb the tartness. Often a litlte sugar (wine must be stable first) will bring taste into balance. And last of all, if the tartness is actually due to too much acid the very last thing you want to do is ADD more acid. I think you need to practice some patience and try it again when it is time to rack and add Kmeta, meaning 3 months from now.

Welcome to the most difficult step of all in winemaking.

Pam in cinti

 

[HapaShawn]

cintipam: My grapes were a mix of ripe and over ripe fruit. Do you think that the over ripe fruit contributed to this taste? I did adjust the pH after primary fermentation.

 

[cintipam]

wrote a long note and the computer ate it, so I'm trying again.

Pls give more details about each step you performed. What was PH preadj, and at which step did you test and adjust. Method of adjustment. PH post adj? Honestly hard to know if the taste is normal or not since we do not know the name of the grape used and the normal wine it makes. But young wine is tart. If your wine is less than 6 months keep it bulk aging with appropriate Kmeta till 6 months. Please note that at about 6 months you should add kmeta and k sorbate at the same time. This is important, so don't just add kmeta since it is time then realize you didn't add the sorbate. This step stops the wine from fermenting any additional sugar you add to backsweeten etc. It is called stabilizing the wine.

Do a bench test to determine if you want to backsweeten. I am betting that you will chose to backsweeten based on your comments. If you do decide to add sugar be certain that the wine has been stabilized at least a week before adding sugar. This is a very common practice for almost everyone who makes wine in order to make the wine please their own palate. Besides sugar I've found that both vanilla and chocolate flavorings greatly enhance white wine. Get the ones sold in winemaking stores to be sure you are using proper stuff, or make your own. There is a whole thread about making your own extracts somewhere on this WMT forum.

Using overripe grapes would have made the wine less acid. Pinot grigio made in CA is a gentle wine, grapes are picked ripe. Pinot G made in Italy has an acid bite to it. They pick the grapes earlier.

Pam in cinti

 

[HapaShawn]

Right I do not have a clue what type of grapes these are but they are Hungarian wine grapes.

Mid to late August 2014: After pressing the juice in the first step, I used an winemakers acid test kit to read a pH of .5. The pH was adjusted to .67 by adding tartaric acid. This was confirmed by with the acid dropper test again. The range it said I needed was .65-.75 but I was afraid to go over so .67 was good enough. Also I didn't want to add too many chemicals to my wine. Specific gravity measured 1.09

Looks like I have some studying up to do. Should I wait till about 6 months to do anything to it? We are 4 months in now.

 

[cintipam]

Yes, please wait. Waiting is the hardest part. Trying to adjust flavor before the wine flavor has actually formed just doesn't help, and often hurts.

BTW I think you might be trying to give me TA numbers instead of PH. Normal desired PH in wine is 3.0-3.5. But the numbers you give make sense for TA. Here is a link to a tutorial about PH.

http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/f71/how-understand-ph-take-reading-11240/

There are some very good discussions on the forum regarding PH versus TA. Lots of opinions. Basically it boils down to PH is important to help prevent bacterial spoilage, range I stated above is safest. TA is more about the taste of the wine. Each type of acid has a different taste and perceived strength. If your wine tastes flat, it could need more acid. But right now the normal young tart taste is still predominant in your wine, so until it mellows all you will do if you add acid or try to adjust stuff is mess up what could mature into a nice wine. Please wait. And I agree more study will help you figure out how to make changes when the time is right.

Pam in cinti

 

[cintipam]

Just one more quick note. yes, you need to study. Examples are first you added acid to your must. I agree with that based on the numbers you gave me. And you added the correct acid for grapes, so good job. Then you proceeded to cold crash your wine. the major purpose of cold crashing is to get excess tartaric acid to drop out. So you were working to remove the acid you had just put in shortly before that. Next you were talking about how the wine tastes tart so you want to add more acid. Basically what I"m trying to say is if I were your wine I would be confused. Does he want me to have more acid or not? And you are doing so so much work to accomplish nothing at all. I guess I just wanted to say again please wait, and read lots of stuff in the tutorial section and other places you help you get a handle on just what you need to do and when you need to do it. We've all been there with our first wine and wanting to tweak it daily. This is why they say winemakers greatest tool is patience.

Pam in cinti