Pinot Grigio from juice pail, few questions on crazy numbers

Winemaking Talk - Winemaking Forum

Help Support Winemaking Talk - Winemaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Stressbaby

Just a Member
Joined
Aug 19, 2012
Messages
2,080
Reaction score
840
In a nutshell:

6gal Pinot Grigio juice bucket from CA, started last fall
Original numbers pH 3.01, TA 0.80%, 1.088.
No adjustments, QA 23, went to 1.006 in 7 days, to carboy where it went dry and quiet.

I've treated this wine very gently; racked just twice, it's now clear and it smells and tastes fantastic. Taste-wise, it's done.

The numbers now TA 0.82% (8.2ml of 0.2N NaOH to get 15ml wine to pH 8.2), pH 2.54 and I still need to cold stabilize this wine.

The numbers seem crazy, right? I've recalibrated the pH meter multiple times and checked my other wines, all comfortably 3.2-3.5 range. I've checked this wine several times, and it has never been above 2.7.

I'm not sure where to go with this wine. If I bottle it I'm afraid I'll have diamonds in the bottle. I considered KHCO3, then cold stabilizing, but not sure what my target is pH-wise. I also considered cold stabilizing then just tweaking with KHCO3 to taste. Thoughts welcome here, thanks in advance.
 
PH should be around 3.1 and 3.45. I would definitely cold stabilizing. Also, not sure if you should but I have in the past, add some tannins.
 
do a bench trial.just take one bottle and cold stabilize in frig and see if you have any benefit. if it taste fine why worry that the numbers may not jive.

also adding tannin do bench trials don't risk whole batch while you experiment to find the right solution if any is really required.

rereading your state of wine have you degassed the wine. may have carbonic acid from co2 skewing numbers.
 
Thanks for the replies.
I haven't actively degassed but this wine is 7 months old and doesn't seem fizzy at all.
I'm leery about leaving 1 bottle worth of headspace, so what I may do is rack it over to a 5g and 2 0.5gal and do the bench trials on those 0.5g
 
rereading your state of wine have you degassed the wine. may have carbonic acid from co2 skewing numbers.


Could it also be a high citric acid number? I'm far from knowledgeable on this so just asking.
 
the ph value is off all acid in the wine. citric acid would be a contributor. but your TA number and your ph number do not match. the ta is a measure of the tartaric acid, the ph is of all acids.

the Ph of 2.53 would normally give you a ta value of 1.0% or better.

back to one of my comments if it taste great forget the numbers full speed ahead.
 
I agree with @salcoco , if it tastes good, it's good to go. I did two PG buckets last Spring (2016), over adjusted a bit adding too much tartaric acid (have since replaced my pH meter). I liked it but my wife didn't, too acidic (pH was still around 3). If you like how it tastes and you are the main consumer, go for it. Pinot Grigio needs good acidity to cut through many of the foods you pair it with.

You could do what I did. I had two 6 gallon buckets. I cold stabilized one, let the other one ride and bottled. The bottled one is coming around and if I don't tell my wife it is the "acidic" one, I never here a complaint, and the bottle gets emptied (and not by me). Can't tell you what the cold stablized one tastes like, but I do plan on racking it off the crystals today and will try it out. FYI, my pH's were 3.01 and 3.04 with a TA of 8.4 g/L and 8.1 g/L. No clue what the stabilized one is measuring, but I'll edit this post and add that sometime today, if I remember, getting older and the grey matter is getting smaller.
 
The titratable acidity is expressed as grams of tartaric acid per 100 ml. you are correct it is a measure of all of the acids just expressed as stated.my bad.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top