MLF for wine- in what temperature it should be made?

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Hello,
I made a dry red wine, now its been aging for three months. It has TA of appr. 9g/l. I think it would benefit from malolactic fermentation, it should soften acidity a little bit. I have doubts about making MLF. I would add special bacteria for that, called "Malocid". The temperature needed for MLF to happen should be at least 62F (17C) or higher. This means, the wine would be kept in quite warm conditions for 1-2 months. And i can not add sulfites before MLF. Can this warm environment harm my wine? In what temperature and what conditions You make MLF?

(I have made MLF to one wine before, the lactic bacterias were added, and wine was kept in room temperature for two months. After the end of MLF i was quite happy with results. But soon aromas that were given by MLF, vanished, and some off-flavours occured. Maybe it is only coinsidence, and wine had a problems prior to MLF. But now i am not sure, will sitting in room temperature will not spoil or age my wine.)
 
I never used Malocid but looking at the specs it has very low tolerances to SO2. It also says residual sugars have to be 4 g/l. Being dry I doubt you have the sugar requirements and depending on your grape source (or juice) plus the SO2 produced during fermentation you may have exceeded the 30 parts total and 10 parts free. Most LABs recommend 70 degrees but I'm sure they will work at slightly lower temps.
 
Which grape is the wine from? Did you make any acid adjustments at crush? (Citric acid additions can result in buttery diacetyl during MLF and addition of synthetic malic acid includes the D-malic rotation that MLB can't metabolize.)

I work mostly with hybrid grapes that also can run quite high in TA. They certainly benefit from MLF. I do my MLF right at the end of fermentation. This way I can get it done and over with so I can get sulfites in the wine to protect it. Something to consider timing-wise for next year.

I like CH16 for the MLF. It tolerates high ABV and completes quickly without off flavor production and while preserving a lot of the fruit aromas. It wants to be 70-75deg and will complete in a few weeks. MLF may proceed more slowly if the pH is low. Are you able to measure the pH?

Once MLF is done, you'll want to add the sulfites like you said, make any final corrections to TA while keeping the pH < 3.65, and consider cold stabilizing the wine to drop out more acid.
 
Thanks for replies. Now i see, that Malocid is not the best option, i will have to find another strain. The wine is from Cascade grapes. It was my first time trying to make wines. Yes, i should have made MLF right after fermentation, next time i'll know. Now TA is 9g/l. pH 3,30. Sulphur additions during all winemaking process: 50ppm before fermentation; 50ppm when racking after fermentation, and additional 50ppm when racking second time. After fermentation was over, the smell of the wine was quite bad, reminiscent of boiled eggs. I tried pouring the wine from one bucket to another for some time, it helped a lot, but some unpleasant smell was still left. I treated a wine with "Kupfat", adding dosage of 0,9g/100l. It really helped with remains of odd aromas, they are gone.
Now i tried to measure free SO2. I have only a kit for measuring TA with blue indicator, and there is an option for measuring free SO2 for white wine, with special iodic solution. The colour of my wine is close to rose, so i tried to measure, but i think the results are not precise. i got 35-40mg./l. I wonder if it would be possible at all to make MLF with such amount of free SO2?
 
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i got 35-40mg./l. I wonder if it would be possible at all to make MLF with such amount of free SO2?
That is going to be tough. I'd call off trying MLF and work with the wine as it is. You may be able to drop TA 1g/L with potassium bicarbonate and then cold stabilization should drop the TA by another 0.5g/L or so. Regardless, you will likely still have about 7g/L which can seem somewhat tart to many people as a dry wine. You could backsweeten with 1% sugar to soften the wine without making it taste sweet, in which case you'll want to add sorbate. Do you plan to serve it chilled, like a rose? That could be a great refreshing summer wine. If you do plan to add sorbate because of plans to backsweeten, you'll want to do this before cold stabilizing it.
 
I am very grateful for the answers. Thank You- mainshipfred and jgmillr1.
I really do not know my real sulfite levels. I have read that measuring red wine with iodic solution can not provide precise results, because other elements in wine, like tannins, are taken for sulphites also. Thus the results are often higher than it could be. Will definitely need to think of a convenient way to measure sulphites in red wine.. Maybe it can be done in some easy way, without purchasing whole laboratory :)

I am not sure i would like to add potassium bicarbonate. I have experimented with another three wines, all of them had excess TA, and i tried reducing TA level a little bit with potassium carbonate, and calcium carbonate. Wines were cold stabilised after it, racked from sediments. I divided every wine into two batches, and corrected TA only of one part of the wine. And i don't like the taste of carbonate treated wines :( It's really different from untreated wines. It has some slightly bitter and pungent flavour.. it can be felt less in wines treated with potassium carbonate, and more with the one i used calcium carbonate. But i really don't want to feel this in wine. Though dosage was not big, it reduced TA from 8,5 to 7,2. Maybe i made a mistakes somewhere.. but after these experiments, i would want to make a conclusion that carbonates is a really good way to ruin my wine. Or- maybe i'm not skilled enough yet to use them? I really did not make any special treatments to get those carbonates out of my wines, other than keeping wines in cold temperatures, precipitation of the sediments and racking.
Do you plan to serve it chilled, like a rose? That could be a great refreshing summer wine
Yes, this wine is really good served chilled. It could be left for using as a rose, even without back-sweetening it :)
 
Thanks for replies. Now i see, that Malocid is not the best option, i will have to find another strain. The wine is from Cascade grapes. It was my first time trying to make wines. Yes, i should have made MLF right after fermentation, next time i'll know. Now TA is 9g/l. pH 3,30. Sulphur additions during all winemaking process: 50ppm before fermentation; 50ppm when racking after fermentation, and additional 50ppm when racking second time. After fermentation was over, the smell of the wine was quite bad, reminiscent of boiled eggs. I tried pouring the wine from one bucket to another for some time, it helped a lot, but some unpleasant smell was still left. I treated a wine with "Kupfat", adding dosage of 0,9g/100l. It really helped with remains of odd aromas, they are gone.
Now i tried to measure free SO2. I have only a kit for measuring TA with blue indicator, and there is an option for measuring free SO2 for white wine, with special iodic solution. The colour of my wine is close to rose, so i tried to measure, but i think the results are not precise. i got 35-40mg./l. I wonder if it would be possible at all to make MLF with such amount of free SO2?
I shared your fresh grape smell like bad eggs situation. I tried a MLF using a product I bought from a wine supply store but honestly don't have any clue if it actually took place (the MLF). Also, I did splash rack a couple of times. The owner of the vineyard (long time in the business fwiw) told me time would help and whether time or MLF, or splash racking, the egg smell is almost totally gone (picked in September).
 
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I shared your fresh grape smell like bad eggs situation. I tried a MLF using a product I bought from a wine supply store but honestly don't have any clue if it actually took place (the MLF). Also, I did splash rack a couple of times. The owner of the vineyard (long time in the business fwiw) told me time would help and whether time or MLF, or splash racking, the egg smell is almost totally gone (picked in September).
I guess the only way to know for sure, if MLF happened, and if it can be considered truly finished, is to measure amount of malic acid before, and after MLF? If MLF is stuck for some reason, it can restart someday, for example, in the bottle, maybe even after some years, if sulphite level will decrease during time. There are tests for that. I would really like to have such possibility to test malic acid. But such test kits are pricy.. Life would be easier, knowing SO2 and malic acid parameters. Especially for the beginner like me, who tries to understand the processes and is new to winemaking :)
 

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