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.
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.