Don’t try this at home

[celladwella]

I did something pretty dumb hope it doesn’t ruin my wine. After crushing grapes which I sulfited I decided I was going to wait to add my yeast a few days let them “cold soak”on the skins probably would have been ok since weather has been cool at night here in Long Island Ny. I picked up 12 lb bag of ice and put it into open fermentor. My numbers post crush were 26 brix 3.89 ph I didn’t get my acid test it’s supposed to get here today so couldn’t do a TA test.

Later that night went to check on my ice chilling must and found that there were holes in the bag so water had leaked into must. Not all the ice melted but a good portion of it did.

I was planning on lowering the sugar a bit but with a ph that high and not knowing what my TA was decided to leave it alone.

When I took another reading I got 22 for sugar and 3.92 ph.

I found it odd the sugar had dropped so low without any yeast additions cool temp of must 62 and initial 50ppm sulfite. So I decided to add my go ferm and yeast.

I took another reading the night after that and found the temp still low 67, but sugar to be 25. My guess is that the 2nd test was skewed by the water that had come out of the ice bag.

I’m 2 days in and fermentation has begun there’s a cap and you can hear it bubbling this morning.

Do you think it would be helpful if
I knew the TA at this point or don’t bother. What would you do if this was you. It seems like the sugar is ok but Ph probably too high.

 

[salcoco]

any measurement made at this time will be skewed due to co2 in the must. carbolic acid can occur during fermentation. wait until wine is clear and at least three months old before assessing any ta or oh numbers.

 

[celladwella]

any measurement made at this time will be skewed due to co2 in the must. carbolic acid can occur during fermentation. wait until wine is clear and at least three months old before assessing any ta or oh numbers.

Okay thanks

 

[celladwella]

Salcoco, do you think I need to panic it was a 10lb bag of ice thinking about 1 gallon of water?

 

[sour_grapes]

Salcoco, do you think I need to panic it was a 10lb bag of ice thinking about 1 gallon of water?

It would be helpful to know how much/many grapes you had (gallons, pounds, whatever).

The fact that your Brix did not drop too much would seem to indicate you will not have a big problem.

 

[celladwella]

Sour_grapes

I crushed 612 lbs 17 36lbs lugs , fermentation is active pitched yeast 2 days ago and brix is at 24 today

 

[Dom Lausic]

Considering the amount of grapes you crushed, I don't see the additional water being an issue at all. If you do the math, its a relatively small percentage. My uncle adds up to a gallon of water to his must (12 cases x 36lbs) when adding sugar to get the Brix up (chaptalization). And not knowing your TA, making adjustments at this point would be a little blind.... I think you'd be ok to still make TA adjustments once you rack from primary?? Curious to see what other think??

Having added the sulfite to the must should protect the wine until the fermentation really kicks off.

What type of grapes were you crushing??

 

[celladwella]

I did Cab Sauvignon, Merlot and Sangiovese. Thanks for the input. I was considering adding some Tartaric Acid but don’t know how much to add. My intital ph reading was 3.89 and my post “accident” reading was 3.92 since I added the yeast 2 days ago I have not taken a ph since from what I’m reading will be off now.

 

[Dom Lausic]

Gotcha. I just made a Pinot Noir, and my pH was 3.9 and TA .5 so I added tartaric acid to bring the TA up. It was a bit of a balancing act! (I have a recent post on everyone helping me through it!). But it was a little easier for me bc I knew my TA. And apparently PN's are typically a little low in TA, high in pH when crushing.

So I'm not sure about adding tartaric at this point. I guess you could put some? But would love to know what some of the other guys think

 

[sour_grapes]

A fairly benign way of estimating how much acid to add does not reference pH, but rather TA. Your TA is generally about 0.7 g/L. You could just estimate how much water you added, then add 0.7 g/l times that.

EDIT: this is wrong. Should be 7 g/l. See message below.

 

[celladwella]

Thanks for the help but I’m don’t think I get it still can you please clarify?

g/l is gallons to liters or grams to liters? For example in my case I believe I added about 1 gallon of water 3.785 liters. So to replenish the acid I would need to add?

 

[sour_grapes]

Thanks for the help but I’m don’t think I get it still can you please clarify?

Ummm, yes, I believe clarification may be in order. I have absolutely no idea what that was supposed to mean.

If it helps, yes, g/l means "grams per liters."

 

[celladwella]

Ummm, yes, I believe clarification may be in order. I have absolutely no idea what that was supposed to mean.

If it helps, yes, g/l means "grams per liters."

Okay thanks for the help. Given the amount of 3 plus grams I don’t see the point in adding right now.

 

[sour_grapes]

Okay thanks for the help. Given the amount of 3 plus grams I don’t see the point in adding right now.

Aack! I am sorry -- wine is usually about 7 grams/liter, not 0.7. Don't know what I was drinking, uummm, I mean thinking. So you would be looking at ~25-30 grams. I think I would consider adding about half of that, and then see how it tastes.

 

[celladwella]

Oh oky

 

[celladwella]

That makes more sense. So add Tartaric acid, dissolve it in some wine add to must and mix it up. Sound right ? Taste and check ph ?

 

[sdelli]

Suggestion... Next time use dry ice. You can throw it right in and it won’t hurt anything. If I am reading right you crushed over 600lbs of grapes? That means you have about 60 gallons of must? If so, you are going to need a lot more then 30 grams of tartaric acid to drop that 3.92 ph.....

 

[sdelli]

I add 20 grams of tartaric acid for every 10 gallons of must.

 

[celladwella]

I just ran a new test calibrated my ph meter took the ph it’s now up to 4.05 it’s been going through Mlf for 2 weeks now. So it’s come up which I expected. Did the TA test for the first time on the wine since my previous attempt failed since I used the frozen must which I thawed. The TA came in at 4.5. With my wine volume 50 gallons my calculations bringing it to 7.3 would require 530 grams of Tartaric has anyone ever attempted this I’m not comfortable adding that much tartaric from what I read they say add half and retest. Thoughts on this?

 

[Johnd]

I just ran a new test calibrated my ph meter took the ph it’s now up to 4.05 it’s been going through Mlf for 2 weeks now. So it’s come up which I expected. Did the TA test for the first time on the wine since my previous attempt failed since I used the frozen must which I thawed. The TA came in at 4.5. With my wine volume 50 gallons my calculations bringing it to 7.3 would require 530 grams of Tartaric has anyone ever attempted this I’m not comfortable adding that much tartaric from what I read they say add half and retest. Thoughts on this?

You posted this twice, I responded on the other thread.