High Ph after MLF

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I have just finished MLF last week with 95 gallons of Petit Sirah. I used Chris Hansen Viniflora Oenos ML bacteria as always. I have 80 gallons in a Flex tank and the rest in 2 carboys. Determined MLF finish through Chromatology testing.

I measured Ph and it has risen from 3.63 pre Alcoholic fermentation to 4.0 Ph post MLF. I measured SO2 with a Hanna 84100 mini titrator Yesterday Free SO2 was 30 ppm today it was 27 ppm.

Should I rack and sulfite to 50 ppm or 55 ppm or should I add tartaric acid and bring Ph down first.

Prior to Must fermentation the Ph was 3.9 but the Brix was not high as it was under 24.9. Therefore, instead of acidulated water I just mixed Tartaric acid with small amounts of water and brought the Ph down to 3.63.

I have never had a high Ph post MLF only pre fermentation of the must and always adjusted accordingly to lower Ph successfully.

Appreciate any ideas
Jeff Sparagana
 
I’ve had plenty of wines that bounce back to their original pH. My best suggestion is to put the meter in the drawer and do acid addition bench trials to taste. My experience is that by the time you adjust the acid where the numbers look good, the wine will not be drinkable. If you adjust to taste, then you can take out the meter and know where you are for SO2 addition.

I’d rack first and do the acid addition. I’m not sure you will move the pH meter much. With a 3.9+ I’d shoot for SO2 levels closer to 90-100. Bottle it within a year and drink it before 5.
 
I will rack and do a next trial. Was expecting to add TA. I thought the closer to 100+ ppm the better chance it have a sulfite taste.

Would love for the PH to come down naturally. I have never had a wine increase from 3.6 to 4.0 in MLF. Will also add some oak staves. Usually bottle in a year. Any other thoughts are welcome.
 
When I rack would it help to give it a shot of SO2 to raise the sulfite level from 27 ppm to say 60 ppm? Then I can do the bench trials and not be worried about the wine.

Jeff
 
I think the exact same thing as @NorCal after dealing with high pH grapes / wines for years. Just forget about the target numbers now, with a TA of 7.0, you could do damage to the taste pretty quickly shooting for a pH. If you determine through bench trials that your wine is best right where it is, then just manage the SO2 properly. If you don't have the red wine pH / free sulfite chart, here are the values near your current pH, at pH 4.0, your target sulfite level should be 80 ppm, pH 3.9 is about 65ppm, pH 3.8 is 50ppm, and pH 3.7 is 40ppm. I have quite a few higher pH wines that are almost 4 and doing just fine so far.
 
Thanks for the input. Make sense to me. I have had wines at 3.8 and managed the PH properly and they were fine. I was concerned about this one because 4.0 after MLF is new territory.

Jefg
 
Jeff, Norcal's recommendation of 100 ppm shouldn't hurt anything since in a years time a lot of it will become bound. It may temporarily bleach it a little but the color should come back. I often over sulfite my wines with the first addition, maybe not to 100 ppm but definately more than the recommended amounts. Johnd's numbers appear to be right on if you wanted to go that route.
 
Jeff, Norcal's recommendation of 100 ppm shouldn't hurt anything since in a years time a lot of it will become bound. It may temporarily bleach it a little but the color should come back. I often over sulfite my wines with the first addition, maybe not to 100 ppm but definately more than the recommended amounts. Johnd's numbers appear to be right on if you wanted to go that route.
I am aggressive on the sulfite up-front and stay close to the book, since a higher percentage of the SO2 gets immediately bound up and will taper down closer to 50 ppm, regardless of pH when it comes close to bottling. Right or wrong, it's worked for me and I work exclusively with this pH range.
 
Just to give you a little of the perspective I used to get comfy with high pH wines, consider the following wine, 2016 Bell Longtable, and the WA evaluation of the wine. Look closely at the harvest acid and final acid at .49 and .63, respectively. The pH of the finished wine is 3.96. I suspect that an aggressive acid addition was made up front, it rebounded some, and adjusted to taste later in the game, and the pH is allowed to be what it is. The wine was successfully aged in barrels for 21 months without problems......good sulfite management, no doubt.

Now look at the WA evaluation, rated 94+, a very respectable wine that you don’t start drinking for 3 years, and has a drinking life of 17 years.

There are MANY CA wines that look like this, if you can get the info. I’m not suggesting that we can make higher pH 94+ wines that last 20 years with the fruit we have reasonable access to, but I am of the firm belief that we can make good high pH wines with decent shelf life, it just requires a little extra attention. Just one winemakers opinion.

631C9927-6267-4E09-A516-8F941B2C1091.png 3157CE07-D7D4-4BA0-89AB-574113381C8A.png
 
There are MANY CA wines that look like this, if you can get the info. I’m not suggesting that we can make higher pH 94+ wines that last 20 years with the fruit we have reasonable access to, but I am of the firm belief that we can make good high pH wines with decent shelf life

I'd also bet that these high pH commercial wines have been sterile filtered at bottling. So, the risks of high pH wines are lower for the commercial wineries than the home brewer that doesn't have the same toys.
 
These grapes are from Paso Robles in California. Thanks for your thoughts. I have had wines at 3.8 that were terrific. I did provide appropriate sulfite management. I plan rack and sulfite to 55 ppm today and then wait a week and test SO2 and Ph then determine what And if will do with something with TA. I did add TA prior to fermentation to reduce PH to 3.6. I am not intimidated by high Ph just want to be careful. Many thanks for the input more is welcomed. Will keep you posted.
 
These grapes are from Paso Robles in California. Thanks for your thoughts. I have had wines at 3.8 that were terrific. I did provide appropriate sulfite management. I plan rack and sulfite to 55 ppm today and then wait a week and test SO2 and Ph then determine what And if will do with something with TA. I did add TA prior to fermentation to reduce PH to 3.6. I am not intimidated by high Ph just want to be careful. Many thanks for the input more is welcomed. Will keep you posted.

You are basically reading straight from my notes on my 2018 Paso Robles cab.
High ph. Adjusted pre-ferment. Crept back up after mlf. Around 3.9ph now 1yr+ still in bulk.
Never adjusted post ferment simply because it’s ideal taste as is. IMO added tartaric lessened the quality after a couple test trials. And a portion of it is still in a barrel. As we know- those so2 charts exist for a reason. Trying to get away with less can teach hard lessons.

One thing I did notice however was that early on the sucker would run through so2 like crazy. I remember I had it at 77ppm. Then Couple months later was down to 35ppm. But that has since stopped and it’s been holding the so2ppm much better now.
I’m curious what so2ppm those commercial guys are allowed to get away with and what else they do for protection
 
So based upon your experience you would go with the appropriate sulfite level today and keep an eye on it rather then worry about adding acid and effecting the flavor in a negative way. I do agree. Will sulfite for 4.0 ph unless flavor is in need of acid. If flavor is good I will not hold back on the appropriate sulfite addition and hold on any acid addition.
Jeff
 
350 stuck in my mind but that is only in the US. I can only imagine these numbers are total not free.

In Europe legal limits for Red wines: 160mg/L, White/Rose wines: 210mg/L and Sweet wines: 400mg/L, US legal limits: 350mg/L and Australia 250mg/L. Naturally occurring levels of SO2 in wines are usually found around 10-20mg/L. All wines containing sulphites greater than 10mg/L must have a statement added to the label making the consumer aware that sulphite in present.
 
Just found this article from Purdue University concerning the alcohol content and SO2 levels. I never knew the .6 and .8 ppm had to do with alcohol content. I always used it as a red and a white but it makes sense since whites are generally lower in alcohol than reds.
 

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I'll be the first to agree that if you have experience with a procedure that works, stay with it. However, the information on SO2 has been changing throughout the years, there's a lot of conflicting information out there. An article from 2012 indicates that the old charts shouldn't be applied to high pH wine, Ive included pieces from the original article below.

Sulfur Dioxide Basics Revisited March 2012 by Clark Smith

Thirty-two years ago my first published piece, printed in the inaugural issues of the University of California, Davis, Extension’s Enology Briefs,1,2 concerned the basics of conventional SO2 management. A table I worked out with pencil and paper in a Shields Library basement can still be found tacked up on winery lab walls throughout the United States. There are omissions I have since regretted, and it is high time for a rewrite.

The most important omission in my 1980 article was to point out the folly of applying the table to high-pH wines. If your wine is pH 4.0, you want to correct the pH, not try to stabilize its microbiology by maintaining 120 ppm FSO2. This applies to winemaking above 3.6, the peak of the bitartrate curve, which constitutes a natural watershed dividing winemaking into low- and high-pH regions. High-pH winemaking concerns itself mostly with red wines, which have more vigorous anti-oxidative phenolic reactions in this zone and greater maturation requirements.

The dominant theme of low-pH winemaking is focused on prevention and control. In high-pH winemaking, we often acknowledge that we have given up on prevention and try instead to direct the inevitable to a stable and agreeable outcome in which a microbial balance is sought rather than a draconian elimination strategy.

In low-pH winemaking, we stress the role of molecular sulfur dioxide to control the growth of microorganisms. Since its effectiveness as an inhibitor is greatly lessened at high pH, it is more sensible to forget about molecular SO2 in this zone and instead regulate free SO2 (FSO2).

Free SO2, which is substantially all bisulfite, should be maintained to combine with H2O2 as it is formed as a side product of chemical oxidation of diphenols. The reaction of sulfites and peroxide is the fastest reaction known to chemistry, and it may be relied upon to prevent the formation of aldehyde from ethanol oxidation. Since SO2 is depleted by this action and by aldehyde binding, it must be measured by aeration/oxidation and maintained at a reasonable level (20-30 ppm) throughout aging. Total SO2 should be measured to assess flavor impact (a soapy finish can be detected at about 200 ppm) and because of its inhibitory effect on malolactic bacteria at about 100 ppm.

A desirable consequence of sulfite oxidation to sulfuric acid is the liberation of free acidity. Over time, very high-pH wines tend to experience decreased pH and slightly increased TA. This effect can be ignored below pH 3.6 but can, during extended barrel age at pH 3.9, result in an increase of around 0.5 g/L in TA and a reduction of 0.1 in pH. Thus wines with sufficient reactive diphenol concentration can begin aging with unbalanced acidity (e.g. pH = 3.9, TA = 4.5) and finish on target (pH = 3.85, TA = 5.0).

The low-pH realm may be compared to in-town driving, where controlled navigation is paramount and little distance needs to be covered. We drive in town at 20 to 40 mph, corresponding to 3.2-3.4 pH. Maturing red wines more resemble freeway driving, in which there is less fragility and a greater imperative to traverse distance. The speeds with which we are comfortable on a divided highway are in the range of 55-75 mph, corresponding to pH 3.7-3.85. I must insist here that higher pHs are irresponsible. Wines at pH 4.0 are comparable to driving at 100 mph: demonstrably unsafe regardless of conditions.
 

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