First time taking meausrements - guidance on adjustments / sulfite

[joeycannoli]

Hello all,

Been doing wine the old fashion way for a while. Been doing a lot of reading and learning on this forum and wanted to start taking measurements and making adjustments to make the wine as ideal as possible. I recently purchased a Vinmetrica to analyze the wine and this is what I came up with my first time taking measurements for this years batch:

PH - 3.75
TA 7.6 g/l Tar
Free SO2 - 10ppm

I know the PH of the wine should be in the range of 3.4-3.6. Do I need to make any corrections here? The Free SO2 seems to be low. Ideally what should it be for a wine with this PH? The wine was just racked off the gross lees and its sitting in demijohns before it goes into the barrel for aging.

Any help would be appreciated. Hopefully I took the measurements correctly. This was my first time, but I followed the instructions from Vinmetrica.

Thanks!

 

[jburtner]

Hi and congratulations on your Vinmetrica - What kind of wine is it? Grape-Must/Juice/Kit are you making?

Looks good to me! TA will probably drop a bit during cold stabilization and MLF if you're doing it. pH might be on the upper end requiring a bit more sulphite to protect.

How does it taste?

Cheers!
-j

 

[mainshipfred]

The easy one is your sulfite level should be around 50 ppm for a red and 70 ppm for a white. With that pH I'm assuming it's a red. TA of 7.6 seems a little high for 3.75 pH. But as far as pH adjustments go I would base it on taste rather than numbers. Congrats on your Vinmetrica.

 

[joeycannoli]

Thanks for the quick responses! The Vinmetrica is cool. Took me a while to get the hang of it and dial it in, but the tests were quick and accurate (I think anyway).

Sorry, I did leave some details out. It is a red blend of Merlot / Cab / Cab Franc from grapes. Is there an easy calculator to base how much sulfite I need to add? The packaging states 1/4 tsp adds 50ppm to 5 gallons of wine.

Thanks so much for the help!!

 

[jburtner]

Just another note - If you're doing MLF you should wait till it's complete to add KMETA / sulfite.

One recommendation I have heard is to adjust for pH prior to fermentation and not to chase TA. Tartrates (excess tartaric acid) will crystalize and drop out during cold stabilization (aka "wine diamonds" or cream of tartar).

I had a cab sav that I added what I thought was excessive tartaric acid to one year and it was a bit "puckery" - This fixed itself in about 18 months bulk aging.. None of it really feels linear to me lol.. I'd like to understand it all better.

Cheers!
-johann

 

[mainshipfred]

You will need 2 things:

First download the Fermcalc link below, it is extremely helpful.

Second you need the sulfite chart

http://fermcalc.com/
http://blog.juicegrape.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/SO2MF1.gif

 

[mainshipfred]

Just another note - If you're doing MLF you should wait till it's complete to add KMETA / sulfite.

One recommendation I have heard is to adjust for pH prior to fermentation and not to chase TA. Tartrates (excess tartaric acid) will crystalize and drop out during cold stabilization (aka "wine diamonds" or cream of tartar).

I had a cab sav that I added what I thought was excessive tartaric acid to one year and it was a bit "puckery" - This fixed itself in about 18 months bulk aging.. None of it really feels linear to me lol.. I'd like to understand it all better.

Cheers!
-johann

Good point on the sulfites and MLF, I should have mentioned that as well.

 

[joeycannoli]

Thanks for the tips you guys. So happy to be apart of such a helpful community. Do you guys check these parameters often or every couple of months? I just added the sulfites so I should be good for a few months - 3, right?

 

[mainshipfred]

Thanks for the tips you guys. So happy to be apart of such a helpful community. Do you guys check these parameters often or every couple of months? I just added the sulfites so I should be good for a few months - 3, right?

You should be, I assume you will not be trying MLF. Checking every three months in glass is about right. The nice thing now is you don't have to worry about over sulfiting the wine by adding a 1/4 tsp each time you rack. I've found that especially in glass that is too much.

 

[joeycannoli]

You should be, I assume you will not be trying MLF. Checking every three months in glass is about right. The nice thing now is you don't have to worry about over sulfiting the wine by adding a 1/4 tsp each time you rack. I've found that especially in glass that is too much.

I was going to do MLF - I usually co-innoculate with the yeast during fermentation, but everything got messed up this year with the supply chain shortages and it didn't work out. I will check the level again before we move it over to the oak barrel for aging.