Banana water for low pH mixed berry must

[Raptor99]

For my fruit wines, I usually aim for pH 3.4 or so. If this was my wine, I would not try to raise the pH at all. Just backsweeten to reduce the bite and bring out the fruit flavor. Berries are somewhat acidic, so if you raise the pH very much the wine won't taste like berries any longer.

Leaving the pH where it is allows you to backsweeten to bring out the fruit flavor without making it taste sweet like a dessert wine. The sugar balances the acid.

Why do you want to cold stabilize? Cold stabilization is sometimes helpful for a wine that is difficult to clear. It also might reduce the amount of tartaric acid. The primary acid in blueberries and blackberries is citric acid, not tartaric, so I doubt that cold stabilization would change the pH.

Assuming that the wine is clear, I would go with...
4. Skip cold stabilize, don't adjust acid, stabilize with Kmeta and KSorbate, backsweeten to taste, and bottle.

 

[Kev6]

Why do you want to cold stabilize? Cold stabilization is sometimes helpful for a wine that is difficult to clear. It also might reduce the amount of tartaric acid. The primary acid in blueberries and blackberries is citric acid, not tartaric, so I doubt that cold stabilization would change the pH.

Assuming that the wine is clear, I would go with...
4. Skip cold stabilize, don't adjust acid, stabilize with Kmeta and KSorbate, backsweeten to taste, and bottle.

I knew that cold stabilizing precipitated tartaric acid but didn't really know that it doesn't help with citric. The instructions for potassium bicarbonate recommend cold stabilize after treatment. So my thought was that it may help and couldn't hurt. I've struggled with muscadine in the past, either too harsh or too sweet. I usually over sweeten and have to blend it into store bought dry wine to bring it back. Just don't want that to happen with this one.

 

[Rice_Guy]

. ,,, I've struggled with muscadine in the past, either too harsh or too sweet. I usually over sweeten and have to blend ,,,

A good balance depends upon how much total acidity is touching your tongue vs how much sugar.

a tool for balancing wines
The figure below is an update of the 2021 post of first place wines which have been evaluated in a contest. This update has blue ribbon and red ribbon non-tannin wines as diamonds, blue ribbon and red ribbon tannic wines (mostly reds) as stars. The black dots are third place/ white ribbon and no place wines.
View attachment 111314
Balance to meet the US market is one of the properties that makes a great wine. Aroma and how bad the defects are will be at least as important as where the balance is placed.

At this time I have looked at several hundred commercial and club wines. The whole data set looks like a fan shape cloud. From this I would assume that personal taste is quite variable (and maybe wonder if folks know how to change sweetness).
View attachment 111320

Do you measure TA? I check total acidity and the pick a sweetness level close to the blue line on the graph. The name influences if I go acidic or sweet. ex dark chocolate would have less sugar than milk chocolate.

 

[Kev6]

A good balance depends upon how much total acidity is touching your tongue vs how much sugar.

Do you measure TA? I check total acidity and the pick a sweetness level close to the blue line on the graph. The name influences if I go acidic or sweet. ex dark chocolate would have less sugar than milk chocolate.

I have a BSG kit for measuring total acidity but the reagents are years old. I tried the 8.2 pH method in your earlier post and needed 13.2cc sodium hydroxide but my concentration is 0.1 normal. 13.2÷10=1.32÷2(hydroxide only 0.1)=0.66%? Color change long before I reached 8.2.
Followed my kit directions came up with 0.55% expressed as tartaric. Not sure of my perception of when there is a "permanent " color change.
Did I miss an attachment somewhere about the blue line on the graph?
I know there are people that geek out on the science side and thrive on the technical aspects but that's not me. I prefer the KISS methodology. Just a home winemaker trying to get better consistency. I do appreciate that there are people on this forum that are willing to share their knowledge and time.

 

[Kev6]

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Did I miss an attachment somewhere about the blue line on the graph?
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I found this graphic. Thanks