A day off

[texasermd]

I finally had a day off work today. After 6 ER shifts in a row (which is unusual for most ER MD's) I decided to perform a little work in the winery. Since it was raining and only in the mid 50's here in Texas, it seemed like a good idea. I have been watching my reds for several weeks and they are finally bone dry. I decided to do a little degassing, add some malolactic bacteria and start the aging process with a little tannin and oak. Sure, this could be fun. Oh, by the way, I have 20 5-gallon carboys going.....


First, about 3 days ago I started my ML culture. It's Lalvin 3X which uses 3 different bacteria to help ensure success. http://www.lallemandwine.us/products/bacteria_strains.php
I re-hydrated in 250ml distilled water, added 250ml of apple cider and let it sit to percolate. I checked the cider before I bought it: one ingredient - Apples!!

But, before I add the ML, I decided to do a little degassing with my vacuum aspirator pump. I let it run for about 5 minutes on each carboy. There were still some bubbles coming to the surface but nowhere near the boiling cauldron that appeared once -22 inches mercury of vacuum was applied.

After degassing and adding the ML culture, it's time for oak and tannin. I added 10gm/gallon of medium toast French oak chips to each carboy...

then I mixed up some Keller Tannin RM. I heated some wine in the microwave until it was warm but not boiling by any means, then I stirred in the tannin. This stuff turns to thick black tar-like goo initially. With continued stirring, it makes a quad-shot-starbucks-cappuccino-looking brew. Since I put 50gm in about 500ml of wine, it works out to 50ml of the final brew to get 5 grams or 1 gram/gallon in each of the carboys.

Finally, it's topping up time. Everything is stirred up very well. I use my stainless lees stirrer, which would usually be attached to a drill, but just stir the wine by hand. I have left the fine lees, by the way, since ML bacteria use nutrients in the lees to proliferate. Also, I have an extra 5 gallons of petit syrah to use to top up all the nearly-full carboys. I put it up on the top shelf to top up the middle shelf and put it down on the middle shelf to top up the bottom shelf.

Here's what the final product looks like.

What a great way to spend a little leisure time. We'll see what another 6 months or so holds in store for all this red wine. Now, what to do about my whites.....


Cheers,


John

 

[laneygirl]

I've read where malolactic acid isn't recommended for wine kits. Are you using all juices and no kits?

 

[Wade E]

Is that vacuum pump something from the Hospital? Is his something we can buy residentially, if so how much?

 

[texasermd]

You are correct regarding kits. According to "Techniques in Home Winemaking" by Daniel Pambianchi, "ML fermentation should not be attempted in kit wines because these types of juices have tartrate-stabilized during their production and thus contain a very high proportion of malic acid, which, would be converted to lactic acid. The wine would have very little acid, and a pH above 3.8 making it very susceptible to bacterial infections"


I would not like to have you bring your wine to the ER with that kind of infection (or the resistant staph infections so prevalent on the news, either)


I am, in fact, using fresh juice which can be treated just like grapes except with the added bonus of not having to crush/destem initially for red and white wines and press after fermentation for reds. The drawback is that some of the tannins that would be released from the red grapes by fermenting on the skins is are missing. These can be made up for by adding tannins during fermentation and before bulk storage. Their use, though, is apparently more art than science for the most part although there are ways of testing for total tannins in wine so a little more information is always helpful if you can get it.


As far as the vacuum aspirator, I read about the technique of vacuum degassing in WineMaker magazine, January 2007 issue. I did a search on eBay and found several. I won mine for $68 plus $30 shipping which is a great deal considering that it's new and they usually go for hundreds. Here is my winning auction:


http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120158308321


The only problem was the overflow container that came with the unit. It apparently leaked and I could not get a full vacuumusing it. I found replacement units on the net for $4 each!! and got a couple extra. The auction did have a disclaimer that basically said it was intended for the medical industry, etc, etc, etc and I thought they might ask for credentials but it went just like any other auction.


Also, as far as the suction container goes, if you think about what would usually end up in there...blood, saliva, etc... they are not meant to be reused. So if you, like I today, have containers that are very full and overflow occurs, that is to be expected. It keeps the stuff from being sucked into the motor which would be bad. For the price, you could just discard it if that happens and use a backup. But I clean and reuse mine.The overflow liquiddoesn't come in contact with any wine since it is just wastesothe containerjust has to be clean and look nice.


My container has a lid with 3 nasty little tabs on the lid. When you push the lid down, they lock in place. If you force the lid shut even tighter, you can wedge something behind a tab and get it to let go. I actually broke one off, left the other 2 intact and perform the little trick above to remove the lid if I have to. It still closes tight and can pull the full vacuum. The basic trick was to be the winning bidder at a decent price for the pump itself... but that's eBay. (but I did have alittle help from a site called ezSniper to win the auction in an unattended way)


Cheers,


John

 

[texasermd]

Oh, if you saw my initial post, this is the vacuum pump I used to transfer all 200 gallons of wine from the primary fermenters (20 gallon bins) to the carboys in the first place so, its uses are varied.

 

[grapeman]

You certainly have lots of wine to experiment and have fun with. The vacumn is a good way to degass, but in your case I don't think it was really necessary at that stage. It was a good learning experience, but was a little unneeded. The MLF generates gasses itself, so the gas you removed will just be replaced and you will need to do it all over again after MLF completion.

 

[texasermd]

I knew I would have to repeat after MLF but I thought I could make the environment a little more hospitable by removing some of the large amount of CO2 from fermentation and thereby raise the pH a little for the ML culture's benefit. The wines are mostly in the pH 3.4 range so start with, though. Thanks for the input.

 

[Wade E]

I will check that out in the future, thanks.