TA testing

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.

erimmey

Junior
Joined
Aug 20, 2023
Messages
4
Reaction score
0
Location
PA
Are there good TA tests or equipment I can buy? I always use the cheap TA test kits off of Amazon and I'm never satisfied.

Thank you!
 
Are there good TA tests or equipment I can buy? I always use the cheap TA test kits off of Amazon and I'm never satisfied.

Thank you!
Hatch has a single drop meter, ,,, I can’t cost justify it. The old fashion titration was the standard when I was a kid, ,it is a cheap test, 0.2N NaOH is available in town ,, and I doubt I ever do over 40 per month.

In the vinters club the numbers I run act as “check samples” so others can compare technique/ pH meter/ gravity, etc. There are commercial labs if you want to compare or I could run one.

By the way,, Welcome to WMT
 
I think you should be able to get a basic titration apparatus for ~$100: 10mL burette, retort stand and burette clamp, 250mL beaker and stir plate (with magnetic stir bar). (You can also use this apparatus for SO2 measurement if you add a conical flask and a couple more chemicals). If you have a pH meter then you only need (0.1 or 0.2N) NaOH and distilled water to measure TA. If you don't have a pH meter then you can use phenolphthalein indicator as an endpoint (see my comment here - there is a bit of a learning curve but it's not really difficult.)

Protocols here (pH meter) and here (phenolphthalein).
 
Last edited:
Hatch has a single drop meter, ,,, I can’t cost justify it. The old fashion titration was the standard when I was a kid, ,it is a cheap test, 0.2N NaOH is available in town ,, and I doubt I ever do over 40 per month.

In the vinters club the numbers I run act as “check samples” so others can compare technique/ pH meter/ gravity, etc. There are commercial labs if you want to compare or I could run one.

By the way,, Welcome to WMT
Thank you!
 
I think you should be able to get a basic titration apparatus for ~$100: 10mL burette, retort stand and burette clamp, 250mL beaker and stir plate (with magnetic stir bar). (You can also use this apparatus for SO2 measurement if you add a conical flask and a couple more chemicals). If you have a pH meter then you only need (0.1 or 0.2N) NaOH and distilled water to measure TA. If you don't have a pH meter then you can use phenolphthalein indicator as an endpoint (see my comment here - there is a bit of a learning curve but it's not really difficult.)

Protocols here (pH meter) and here (phenolphthalein).
I work in a lab and actually have access to all of those things. I have to double check the NaOH though. I never use that equipment for measuring titration and it never occurred to me. Wow, I feel silly. Thank you.

Could you please give me a source explaining how to measure TA using the equipment I already have?
 
Traditional wine was done totally by taste. And in the club some of the winemakers I respect the most do not run any numbers. I grew up using numbers because the QA lab would hire just out of high school folks and they need rules to go by till they learn how to taste the problems.
 
Could you please give me a source explaining how to measure TA using the equipment I already have?
My post above has links to protocols for both pH meter and colorimetric TA methods. (The links are sometimes a bit hard to see, I underlined them for clarity). Googling 'wine TA titration' will probably bring you a bunch of similar documents.
 
Back
Top