Fermenting Temp

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Ernest T Bass

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I visited a local winery and talked to the owner for about an hour about how to make good wine. He only made muscadine wine, he said to ferment the muscadines at as low a temperature as you can don't add any water. Was he right one either or both accounts. I started muscadine today, I used 35 lbs of muscadines and added 4 liters of water, do you think that was too much water? As I mashed each muscadine between thumb and fore finger I could tell that the pH is pretty low. Every muscadine wine I have made, the pH is always about 2.5 and 2.8, I adjust it to about 3.1 or 3.2 with calcium carbonate, is this good or should I leave it low. I know it's a long post, but, then I didn't ask all the questions I wanted to. Thanks for any and all replies.
Semper Fi
 
I think you'll do fine. There 's a lot of flavor in them. I've made second run muscadine that turned out nice. 65 is a good temp for me.
 
I think there are 2 possible concerns about ph. One is that if it's too high or low, the yeast won't work or will stall or something. The other is that it may taste bad if it's not in a given range. If you're getting it to ferment to dry or close enough, you've passed one hurdle. I tested for ph my first couple of batches of muscadine. I corrected must that was below the optimum range with calcium carbonate, bringing it just into the low end of the range. After fermentation, it was at the high end of the range. It seems to me that the process of fermentation raised the ph some. The other means of bringing the ph up is by adding water. I've read here that calcium carbonate gives the wine a chalky taste. I didn't notice that in the 18% alcohol batch I made. I have been making muscadine wine with another winemaker who uses a lot of water and that's what I've depended upon to keep me out of ph trouble. Now I've started using much less water (once again, I read it here) and I'm interested in how this is going to work out because I'm not bothering to test the ph any more in muscadine wine.
Oh, one other ph related matter. Since muscadine tends to be acidic and elderberry tends to be lacking in acidity, I am currently fermenting a batch of combined muscadine and elderberry where I combined the fruit right from the start in the must. We'll see.
 
I believe your wine maker might know what he is doing. Adding water only dilutes the mash and normally muscadines need added sugar so diluting is counter productive IMHO. There is a good article here by Chik Brenneman on Winemaker Mag. He just wrote an article about this grape. He suggests fermenting at a rather high temp, high to me anyway, but I suspect since he wants to get it off to a good start and over quickly so the skins can be removed sooner. Note he uses about 19lbs of grapes per gallon of expected juice and only adds 1 gallon of water.

Good luck with your batch and please let us know it turns out. :r
 
I know a lady that took a 2nd place at the Florida state fair using 7.5 lbs/ gallon
 

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