Help with wine kit tweaking

[wine o]

Hello members. New to this site. Used to make beer, wine with kits about 20 years ago and now that the kids left home, I’m back at it. Made quite of few kits of the Passport series wine and they are wonderful. I want to start tweaking some cheap kits for something to do and to eventually start making wine from fruit. I thought doing this would get me started in this using the different chemicals to adjust ph and acid levels and using the instruments like ph meter, refractometer etc. Most kits are already ph and acid balanced already so with tweaking kits, I think this would be a good exercise for when making wine from scratch.

So, I bought through Costco online their Cellar Master Cab sav which are 5.5L concentrate. I instead of 23L, I only topped it up to 19L. With my refractometer I got 22 Brix. PH is at about 3.2. Using the sodium hydroxide .01N with 15 ml sample to 8.2 ph acid test, I ended up with TA of .25%. Didn’t expect this, I thought it would be higher.

Using the graph from the acid test kit I have, I added 2 0z of tartaric acid (which would bring down the PH further I know) which in theory should have only brought the TA up to about .30% for a total of about .55% (still low I know) but I only got a reading of .35 which is still low. Oh, and now my PH is now down to 3. Bummer.

I calibrated the ph meter (bought on amazon for $30) with the 4.01, 6.86 and 9.18 solutions. I used the calculation of 75 x ml of sodium hydroxide x .1 divided by the 15 ml sample.

What am I doing wrong? Is it my cheap PH meter? The sodium hydroxide acid test kit I bought from the wine store says this…..

Sodium hydroxide (1/5N) contains 0.8% caustic soda.

Am I using the wrong calculaton of .1 in the formula that gives me the TA? What should I do now? Should I add calcium carbonate to bring the ph back up knowing the TA will go down? So many questions, so little knowledge. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[salcoco]

I can't comment on your calculations but I believe that the wine kit has been balanced by the manufacturer . The acid level most probably will not change as the solution is highly buffered and any additions will not cause a major affect. In fact I would hazard a guess that the additions you have made may have spoiled this kit for drinkablility. Most wine kit enhancements are alcohol related, tannin enhancement or fruit taste enhancement. there is an extensive thread herein on the many tweaking methods for wine kits, I would pursue there methods.

 

[cmason1957]

I once measured the acid and adjusted it for a wine kit. It was a big mistake. Alcohol, body, oak, fruit, are all the additions I do these days.

 

[wine o]

I can't comment on your calculations but I believe that the wine kit has been balanced by the manufacturer . The acid level most probably will not change as the solution is highly buffered and any additions will not cause a major affect. In fact I would hazard a guess that the additions you have made may have spoiled this kit for drinkablility. Most wine kit enhancements are alcohol related, tannin enhancement or fruit taste enhancement. there is an extensive thread herein on the many tweaking methods for wine kits, I would pursue there methods.

Yeah, maybe I jumped the gun on this and should not have added the tartaric acid. I pitched the yeast anyway and will go through with it mostly out of curiousity now to see what happens. If the taste is ok I will age it and see how it fares over time. Thanks.

 

[wine o]

I once measured the acid and adjusted it for a wine kit. It was a big mistake. Alcohol, body, oak, fruit, are all the additions I do these days.

Lol. Live an learn I guess. Thanks.