Must Adjustment Advice please

[xriddle]

Just crushed my sangiovese and I have a brix of 25.2 a pH of 3.98 and TA of .62

I'd like to lower the brix slightly and the PH to about 3.5-3.6 ... How should I go about this? Distilled water? Acid addition with distilled water?

Thanks

 

[GreginND]

Yes, I would add water to adjust the brix first and then re-test the acid so you know where you are sitting at. Then add small portions of tartaric to get to your desired acid range. Caution, though - although a pH of 3.5-3.6 is ideal - watch the TA. You may not get the pH down all the way without throwing the TA out of whack. I would add to a TA of no more than 0.8.

 

[xriddle]

Is regular mineral water fine or should I add distilled water.

 

[GEM]

I agree with Greg, except I would not add water, which may reduce flavor. If you do use water, use bottled drinking water. Try to stay away from coordinated water. I just made 70 gal of Sangiovese that are doing bulk aging with oak cubes in carboys. Best of luck. Gary

 

[salcoco]

Any water that is drinkable is fine. do not use distilled water as yeast like to have the mineral content that exits in tap water. Your Ph at this point is more important than TA. add acid after water addition to get ph to 3.4. use cold stabilization(chilling at 37 deg for one week) post fermentation to remove any excess acid. make sure you use only tartaric acid.

 

[xriddle]

Work out guys.

After reading the link below multiple times I added 3 liters of filtered drinking water and 62grams of tartaric acid. Tested again this morning and things are looking good.

Starting Values: 25.2 Brix / pH 3.98 / TA of .62
After Adjusting: 23.3 Brix / pH 3.59 / TA .72

http://morewinemaking.com/articles/complete_must_adjustment_pH_TA_Brix

Thanks everyone.

 

[GreginND]

Glad to hear it. I hope the flavor comes through for you. If you think it is a bit thin near the end of fermentation maybe think about a little extended maceration.

 

[xriddle]

I did use opti-red on the batch at crush ... so hopefully that helps as well.

 

[skipdonohue]

I just cant for the life of me understand why you lowered that nice brix you had...

 

[Pumpkinman]

I have to agree with Skipdonohue, 25 brix is just about flat out perfect.

 

[GreginND]

Well, I thought the same thing but didn't question the original poster. Just gave advice based on what he asked for. I can see some folks desiring a table wine without so much alcohol. 25 brix would end up higher than the 11-12 percent table wines of old.

 

[xriddle]

To answer why I lowered the Brix. Exactly that. I didn't want to end up with an alcohol level of over 15%. Brix 25.2 would have yielded aprox 15.2% according to online calculators. I am planning to blend this sangiovese with an already high alcohol level (15.5) merlot/cab so I wanted a final alcohol level between 13.0-13.5 for this batch. Thanks all. I added part of my yeast nutrient and energizer dose last night and will be pinching my D-47 tonight.

 

[skipdonohue]

25.2 brix is a hair under 14% alc….

 

[xriddle]

What calc or formula do you use?

I used this calculator http://www.brewersfriend.com/brix-converter/ and it says 25.2 = 15.3%.

Also I use a digital refractometer and measured my brix again before pitching my yeast and it had goneup/stabilized at 24.1 after my adjustment. So my question is how long should someone wait to measure levels after adjusting?

 

[sour_grapes]

I spent some time looking into the formula that this calculator uses, and I have managed to convince myself that its ABV calculations are not accurate for the ranges of SG used in winemaking. (It was designed for beer brewing.)

It is not a simple problem to describe. Basically, that calculator uses empirical formulas for SG vs. sugar content, but it extrapolates them beyond their region of validity. I discuss the problem here (from another thread). The "simple" equation I refer to below is ABV=(original SG - final SG)*131.25:

I am pretty sure that the calculator that you used is not accurate at high SG. If you read the link that was given with the calculator you used, you will see the actual equation that calculator uses. It is stated that this is an improvement for high-gravity beers over the simple method Rocky uses. That sounds good, right? High-gravity beer is close to wine, right?

Well, not close enough. The approximations used in the more complex calculator you used begin to break down above an initial SG of about 1.06. (That is plenty high for beer, but not for wine.)

The great irony is that the more complex equation gives WORSE results than the simple equation does for SG's over about 1.06. How do I know this? I went to the source of that "complex" equation:

All Homebrew magazine free articles

The one we are most interested in: Math in Mash

It turns out that that "complex" equation is an approximation to an even more complex equation. I plotted all three equations (simple, moderately complex, very complex) for a variety of conditions. I chose an initial SG and then plotted the predicted ABV as a function of final SG. For initial SG's below about 1.05, all formulas gave about the same answer. For higher initial SG's, the results diverged, and the simple formula was actually closer to the most accurate (i.e., most complex) formula than the moderately complex one used in the calculator you used.

For your specific case, intial SG= 1.092, final SG = 1.003, the ABV results are:

simple formula (i.e., similar to Rocky's, but 131.25 is the factor) = 11.68
moderately complex formula (same as your calculator) = 12.52
most accurate = 11.77

Hope that helps!

 

[Snafflebit]

xriddle,

There is a lot of sugars in the uncrushed grapes and that will raise your brix after a water addition. On my last ferment I measured a sample of the fresh must and pressed it, adjusted the brix of that juice with water and then added the same ratio of water to the remaining must. Your final result will be the target ABV.