I made wine for decades without checking pH. Initial acid was what it was, and I adjusted acid by taste prior to bottling.
I tried acid titration, but I totally suck at it with red wines. I tried again a few years ago, but with no better result.
Acid test strips provide a ballpark answer. If the pH is above 3.9 or below 3.0, IMO it needs adjustment. I might add acid if at the top end of the range, only to bring it down to 3.7 or so. I've totally FUBARed batches by playing with acid, which is where my mantra "it's easier to add more than to take some out" came from.
Good Judgment comes from Experience.
Experience comes from Bad Judgment.
Since buying the meter, I've been checking things relatively frequently -- not to change things; rather to understand how pH can change.
As a general warning, we should never read too much into exact numbers. I'll use Consumer Reports as an example -- I've been a subscriber for over 30 years, and I find their ratings very valuable. But I keep in mind the footnote they used to post on the ratings pages -- something like rating differences of less than 5 points are not necessarily meaningful, e.g., a mattress rated 82 is not necessarily superior to one rated 79.
In that light, pH values of 3.41 and 3.46 don't necessarily mean anything useful.
