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- Jan 19, 2018
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I think I screwed up five gallons tonight..... This is my second year to try making wine as a hobbyist.
Using wild muscadine/mustang grapes harvested Saturday, last night I had my 2.5gal of pressed juice and ran a pH just to see where I was and it was 2.7 after calibration. I read and re-read my Potassium Bicarbonate label to understand what I was reading. It says "Acid Reduction Powder / 1-1/3tsp per US gallon lowers acid content 0.1%, NOT recommended to reduce acid more than .3%". So that in my mind sort of excluded use of that to get the acid under control since I needed to go .5% or 3.2 for pH. I had already gotten my SG under control at 1.095/BRIX @24 so I pondered what to do next. I fell back to dilution of the juice like I did last year with Spring water but that messed up my SG again. (to the tune of 2.5gal pressed juice extract and 10 gallons Spring water) So I had to add more sugar to get SG/BRIX back in line and then it came time to add the Potassium Bicarbonate. So I measured out 6-1/3 tsp (1-1/3 x 5gal) and got that in slowly as recommended. After a few minutes it started to foam and the mix turn dark brown. So I checked the pH and it was now at 4.0. It's still mostly brown yet tastes generally ok whereas the other five gallon bucket is at 3.2 and seems tart to the taste. I've not pitched yeast yet and was going to use EC-1118 for all.
Is this salvageable now? I have some "Acid Blend" powder which the label says "contains food grade citric, maltic and tartaric acid".
.....and I still have 50lbs of grapes picked from Saturday sitting in two buckets on my kitchen floor I don't know what to do with. I think I've simply got more grapes than capacity as I've run out of primaries and I certainly don't have that many extra carboys around.
Help!
Using wild muscadine/mustang grapes harvested Saturday, last night I had my 2.5gal of pressed juice and ran a pH just to see where I was and it was 2.7 after calibration. I read and re-read my Potassium Bicarbonate label to understand what I was reading. It says "Acid Reduction Powder / 1-1/3tsp per US gallon lowers acid content 0.1%, NOT recommended to reduce acid more than .3%". So that in my mind sort of excluded use of that to get the acid under control since I needed to go .5% or 3.2 for pH. I had already gotten my SG under control at 1.095/BRIX @24 so I pondered what to do next. I fell back to dilution of the juice like I did last year with Spring water but that messed up my SG again. (to the tune of 2.5gal pressed juice extract and 10 gallons Spring water) So I had to add more sugar to get SG/BRIX back in line and then it came time to add the Potassium Bicarbonate. So I measured out 6-1/3 tsp (1-1/3 x 5gal) and got that in slowly as recommended. After a few minutes it started to foam and the mix turn dark brown. So I checked the pH and it was now at 4.0. It's still mostly brown yet tastes generally ok whereas the other five gallon bucket is at 3.2 and seems tart to the taste. I've not pitched yeast yet and was going to use EC-1118 for all.
Is this salvageable now? I have some "Acid Blend" powder which the label says "contains food grade citric, maltic and tartaric acid".
.....and I still have 50lbs of grapes picked from Saturday sitting in two buckets on my kitchen floor I don't know what to do with. I think I've simply got more grapes than capacity as I've run out of primaries and I certainly don't have that many extra carboys around.
Help!
