Required Equipment

[JohnT]

I toatally am not in line with buying an acid test kit over a ph meter especially when desling with grapes and in that quantity. A ph meter is much more accurate and will last a whole lot longer and worth the extra money. Id rather stray from the refractometer and go with the ph meter as whatever the brix levels are can easily be adjusted with a little water or sugar.

Wade,

Perhaps I am overlooking something.

Other than a little bit of accuracy, is there a benefit to using a PH meter rather than a titration kit? (let's assume that the kit is not old and has not been sitting on a shelf for more than a couple of weeks)?

I have seen a lot of blogs about PH meters, but fail to see the specific benefits over a titration kit. I have a PH meter that is still in the box. I have been using titration kits since they are simple, cheap, and do not need to be calibrated.

Please take the above as a genuine request for info and not a criticism. If there is a true, real benefit, then I will switch over to the meter.

johnT.

 

[sly22guy]

Bump i too would like to know the difference and pros & cons of each

 

[JohnT]

The way I see it, this is the difference..

An acid titration kit will tell you the % content of acid in your wine (or the acid WEIGHT).

A PH meter measures the STRENGTH of the acid (or ionic content).

Since many different acids exit in wine, each having a different strength, It becomes more important to maintain the proper PH level and less important in maintaning the Acid content.

This is not to say that simply measuring the acid titration is a bad thing. Since the narturally occuring acids in wine do not vary significantly, measuring acid titration, although not as accurate, should be good enough for the average winemaker.

Folks, Please let me know if any of you disagree.