Need some advice on secondary/MLF

[Hannabrew]

I am making wine for the first time and have a couple of questions.

I had 3 buckets of Chilean, 2 reds and a Sav Blanc.

All 3 were unbalanced but taking the advice of folks here in another thread I let it ride for now.

They all fermented out well and were tasting good when I racked to secondary about 5 weeks ago. I racked the reds to glass carboys with some SO2 and the Sav Blanc to a keg to be carbonated via CO2 (yes I want a sparkling white).

My questions are the following:

1) I didn't add anything to the reds for MLF, they've just been sitting there aging on oak balls. Should I have added some cultures or have people had success letting it happen spontaneously?
2) How long should I keep the reds in the secondary prior to bottling?
3) Both the reds have still low pH and low TA. Should I raise the pH with calcium carbonate and add some TA to raise the TA level?

TIA!

 

[BernardSmith]

Hi Hannabrew, and welcome.
I think it might be helpful to know what the pH and TA are. Low pH does not seem like a problem if you are aging the wine. I may be naive but I would think that a low pH simply means that you do not need a lot of K-meta (free sulfates) to inhibit oxidation and extend shelf life. A low TA may mean that the wine is too blah to enjoy. You want the TA to be around 6- 6.5 g/L (TA is a different measure of acidity than pH. When you lower pH you likely raise TA. pH being the STRENGTH of the acids in the wine. TA is the AMOUNT of those acids. And as I often say, you can have a lot or a little of strong or weak acids).

If this were my wine I would add MLF cultures rather than hope that there are enough bacteria in the wine to do that work. My experience with wine grapes is limited and so others with far more experience may have a very different view but unless you know for sure that your wine will likely spontaneously go into an MLF then you should add bacterial culture. And that will give you a better sense of when to bottle: you do not want MLF to happen spontaneously in corked bottles. And you do want to allow your wine to almost fully age in the carboy. That helps ensure that each bottle is going to be more or less identical. Bottle aging often means that some (or all) bottles will have sediment.

 

[Michael T]

Welcome to WMT! This is the friendliest place on the interwebs. Listen to BernardSmith, he knows his stuff.

 

[cmason1957]

If you added SO2 to your reds when you racked them (and I think it reads that you did) MLF will probably not happen without adding bacteria and depending on how much SO2 is in that wine now, even adding bacteria might have problems completing MLF. Depending on how low your PH is, MLF might not happen no matter what. I do have a question about your PH, if you are measuring it now, it will measure low due to dissolved CO2 being in the wine. I would certainly wait a bit before trying to change what you have.

How long to keep it aging is a individual question. I generally don't even think about bottling a wine in under 6 months and most end up being a year old.

 

[Hannabrew]

Both reds have a pH of 3.25. I've racked and degassed a couple of times since moving to secondary so shouldn't be too much CO2 in there.

TA for both reds is ~5g/L. I realize adding TA would be beneficial but that will lower my pH even more...which is why I was debating raising the pH first to neutralize the TA addition.

For MLF, it won't hurt anything that I've waited 6 weeks after racking to start it? As for SO2, I only added about 20ppm to each and as mentioned I've racked and degassed twice since adding so that has likely knocked some of that out.

As for telling when it's done, is there any way without the $100 kit?

 

[BernardSmith]

Some quick thoughts.
1. Not an expert but I would think a pH of 3.25 after active fermentation is fine. Taste is centered on TA and not pH.
2. TA of 5 g is a bit low but taste the wine. If it seems a bit flabby you could add some tartaric and that would both drop the pH and raise the TA. Too low a pH is a problem for the yeast not for aging. In my opinion a very low pH is never a problem after fermentation. Quite the opposite - Your wine will have a longer shelf life.
3. Adding 20 ppm of SO2 is not much for aging (you would want this to be closer to 50 ppm) but if you are planning on MLF then you are probably in the right ball-park.
4 . Knowing when MLF is done? Depending on what bacteria you use I think that 6 weeks is a reasonable time to wait but a) you can buy Acuvin test strips for about $40. They are not cheap but the kit comes with tubes for collecting the sample and the test strips. Me? I would add the bacterial culture and wait about 6 weeks and then test to see how much malic was left. Not sure but I think the set comes with about 16 or 20 strips and you might need one or two for any batch. MLF creates tiny bubbles in the wine but I would not argue that they are always easy to see in a dark red wine and personally I would not rely on bubbles.

 

[Hannabrew]

Thank you all very much. Very helpful.

I'll get some bacteria cultures and pitch it and work from there.

 

[Hannabrew]

So I bought the VP41 and a 5g pack of ACTI-ML and a 6g pack of OPTI-MALO...should've read the dosage rates first as apparently I don't have enough of either for my 12 gallons of red wine that I want to start MLF since I'm planning on pitching the entire 2.5g of VP41 between the two vessels.

Since 2.5g of VP41 is overkill for the 12 gallons of wine, can I get away with only 5g of ACTI-ML to hydrate it? Same with the OPTI-MALO, can I get away with 3g in each 6G vessel? Alternatively, can I pitch with 3g in each and get another 6g packet shipped to me and add it at a later date (a week later?)