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.
2018 Grape Season Underway
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Same here. Need to inventory what I have and order what I need.
pgentile
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pgentile
Still learning
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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.
pgentile
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I looked hard at the Zinderella grapes. Good luck with it all.
Did a quick inventory - need Acti-ML, llalzyme, yeast and MLB. The go-ferm is starting to cake. But, looks serviceable.
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.
You must have been reading this on your phone and missed some of the post.LOL! 3.65 - 3.70
Boatboy24
No longer a newbie, but still clueless.
Did you get any juice out of the Petite Manseng?
No just what I got from tasting some grapes. Their harvest was 33% lower then normal so I didn't even ask. He also told me it wasn't quite ready to harvest but he was afraid of the coming rains and said 66% was better then nothing.
Yep - missed that. So, you'll push it through an MLF and wind up where? 3.4 - 3.5?
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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...............
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.
I can't test anything right now since I can't calibrate the ph probe. my 4.01 solution won't go below 4.19 but the 7.00 solution is fine. I just opened a new bottle of both and I think the 4.01 is bad. Trying to get in touch with Vinmetrica now.
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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.
