I agree it seems outrageously high. I did to calibrate the pH meter with two packets of solution I had laying around. Granted they could have been to old also. I’m just going to wait and see.
Found this incase anyone else wonders about this.
The freezing process causes tartaric acid in the musts or juices to form salts and precipitate to the bottom of the pails as cream of tartar. Because of this precipitation of the tartaric acid, as well as the separation formed by the other components in our frozen grapes we insist that you stir your musts and juices extremely well before doing any analysis. After stirring your thawed must or juice in the pail, pour this into your fermentor and stir in some more. Make sure to scrape out and add all the sticky stuff that remains in the pails into your fermentor and then stir your must or juice some more. Stir, stir, stir. The tartaric acid will not stabilize until after fermentation.
Total acidity is the concentration of tartaric acid in grams per 100 milliliters of solution. Tartaric acid is unstable in cold and alcoholic environments. The ph of your must, juice or wine will be affected by the state of tartaric acid. If you measure the total acidity and ph of your must soon after thawing your pails, you will see that the TA is low and the ph is high when compared to Brehm vineyard’s harvest stats posted on the grape label of your varietal.
For white juice, the grape label should be accurate, except for the effects of the cold on the tartaric acid. White juice, after thawing, will show a lower overall total acidity and higher ph due to the instability of the tartaric acid. This cream of tartar will dissolve during fermentation.