How to correct low pH and TA

[Busch]

I too have just completed my 2nd batch of juice concentrate wine and it came out with a flat taste. Any way to improve this before bottling? I let the fermentation go a week or so then added sodium carbonate for 24 hrs, then transferred to carboy & let off-gas for another week. Palatable wine for juice concentrate that I mixed up but still sort of flat.... any suggestions? Infusing something??

 

[Rice_Guy]

Flat? frequently a wine with low acid is described as flat. I suggest be a wine judge with a glass of wine and add a few grains of acid blend to see if it is improved, ,, if so then a bench trial with 100ml or 50ml and a 1/10 solution of acid blend and a syringe (ex what the kids get meds with) Pick out the level of acid that meets your flavor goal, ,,, wait and remastered the best treatment the next morning. Best often changes based on what you have eaten.

Sodium is not recommended for fixing wine. It can get salty. Potassium bicarbonate and calcium carbonate should be available in your wine supply store.
If you have too much acid you can balance acid flavor by adding sugar and preserving that with K sorbate.

 

[Busch]

What acid level should it be at? Is there a chart for these things? I'm in batch 3 now and same thing.. kinda flat tasting

 

[Nebbiolo020]

What acid level should it be at? Is there a chart for these things? I'm in batch 3 now and same thing.. kinda flat tasting

You want ideally between 3.65-3.80 for a target ph range in a finished wine.

 

[Busch]

Thank you. So I ran into another little snafu maybe someone can help with. I have a ph tester and hadn't used it before & didn't realize I need deionized water to calibrate it. I cannot seem to find this anywhere but amazon for either a ridiculous price or a whole gallon, when I only need maybe a liter. Does anyone know where to find this without paying more than maybe $10? Or a workaround???

 

[BarrelMonkey]

Thank you. So I ran into another little snafu maybe someone can help with. I have a ph tester and hadn't used it before & didn't realize I need deionized water to calibrate it. I cannot seem to find this anywhere but amazon for either a ridiculous price or a whole gallon, when I only need maybe a liter. Does anyone know where to find this without paying more than maybe $10? Or a workaround???

DI water is typically used in a lab setting, but if you use distilled water from your local grocery store you should be fine. If you want to get fancy you can boil the distilled water or put it under vacuum for a few minutes to purge any dissolved CO2, but it probably won't make a huge difference to your test results.

 

[Busch]

Thank for the comment. I did as you mentioned & purchased distilled H2O and boiled it, but unfortunately, I could not calibrate it. I think the buffers were bad so I am ordering another set to try again. Is calibrating really that precise meaning do you have to dilute in 250ml or can be diluted in a small juice glass.

 

[BarrelMonkey]

If you're dissolving powder to make your pH standards, you do need to add the right amount of water. pH is literally the (negative logarithm of) hydrogen ion concentration, and the buffer sachet is designed to give a certain H+ concentration when dissolved as specified - so if you add the wrong amount of water, your values will be off.

What sort of pH meter do you have and what do you mean when you say you couldn't calibrate it? If you have one of those $10-$15 pH pens that are so common on Amazon.com, I'm afraid you might be out of luck. See comments from me and others on this thread here...

 

[Busch]

If you're dissolving powder to make your pH standards, you do need to add the right amount of water. pH is literally the (negative logarithm of) hydrogen ion concentration, and the buffer sachet is designed to give a certain H+ concentration when dissolved as specified - so if you add the wrong amount of water, your values will be off.

What sort of pH meter do you have and what do you mean when you say you couldn't calibrate it? If you have one of those $10-$15 pH pens that are so common on Amazon.com, I'm afraid you might be out of luck. See comments from me and others on this thread here...

I didn't get it from Amazon, but this is it: PH Tester

 

[BarrelMonkey]

I didn't get it from Amazon, but this is it: PH Tester

I can only report my experience, but I don't think these testers are very trustworthy. You may want to try calibrating it at just one pH value (4.00), though the accuracy will only be about +/- 0.1 pH unit at best. But that might be sufficient for your purposes if you're just trying to get a rough estimate.

 

[tmcfadden932]

You want ideally between 3.65-3.80 for a target ph range in a finished wine.

White wines in the 3.25 to 3.45 range. Rose' 3.35 to 3.55, and reds about 3.6 pH. SO2 is added according to the pH, the lower the pH, less is needed. At 3.8 pH, to much is needed to stabilize the wine and if you have a good palate, you can start to taste it.

 

[Nebbiolo020]

White wines in the 3.25 to 3.45 range. Rose' 3.35 to 3.55, and reds about 3.6 pH. SO2 is added according to the pH, the lower the pH, less is needed. At 3.8 pH, to much is needed to stabilize the wine and if you have a good palate, you can start to taste it.

All the wines I have ever made finish out at 3.70-3.80 that includes professionally my mentor always wanted 3.70 in his wines and told me that’s what I should target. As for white wines he said basically 3.50-3.60 was his ideal target and none of the wines ever tasted out of balance.
I guess it’s a matter of a winemakers personal opinion and style like everything else.

I studied under a winemaker who learned much of what he knows from Jeff Cohn.

 

[tmcfadden932]

All the wines I have ever made finish out at 3.70-3.80 that includes professionally my mentor always wanted 3.70 in his wines and told me that’s what I should target. As for white wines he said basically 3.50-3.60 was his ideal target and none of the wines ever tasted out of balance.
I guess it’s a matter of a winemakers personal opinion and style like everything else.

I studied under a winemaker who learned much of what he knows from Jeff Cohn.

I make mostly grape wine in California. The wine makers club I belong to, LAVA, the Lodi Amateur Vintners Association, lavawine.org, which has monthly meetings where we have wine makers from a winery, where we hold our meetings that month, give a 1 to 2 hour seminar on any aspect of wine making they chose. The meetings are held at a different winery every month, some are small craft type and some are commercial type like Woodbridge Winery.

The range I listed is the range the pros here in California use because it works for wines that age well. I made a Chardonnay in 2012 that most midwestern based winemakers, that like sweeter wines, would have found to be to acidic but with age, now tastes wonderful 10 years later. I have used that range in my wine making with great success at amateur competitions that also have the pros entering their wine in their category. My awards include best of show, best in class and numerous gold and double gold awards.

 

[Nebbiolo020]

I make mostly grape wine in California. The wine makers club I belong to, LAVA, the Lodi Amateur Vintners Association, lavawine.org, which has monthly meetings where we have wine makers from a winery, where we hold our meetings that month, give a 1 to 2 hour seminar on any aspect of wine making they chose. The meetings are held at a different winery every month, some are small craft type and some are commercial type like Woodbridge Winery.

The range I listed is the range the pros here in California use because it works for wines that age well. I made a Chardonnay in 2012 that most midwestern based winemakers, that like sweeter wines, would have found to be to acidic but with age, now tastes wonderful 10 years later. I have used that range in my wine making with great success at amateur competitions that also have the pros entering their wine in their category. My awards include best of show, best in class and numerous gold and double gold awards.

Even though I work professionally I do belong to a local home winemaking club mostly because they offer grapes you can buy for home winemaking and so I can help out with teaching people techniques and helping home winemakers better replicate commercial techniques to get wines that are a lot better than what they would normally produce.
I am a huge advocate for cold soaking using dry ice it protects the wine from oxygen by displacing any oxygen and it cools down the must and you get a softer lusher more rounded wine and it can help with big wines so they don’t become out of balance. I really like cold soaking Zinfandel you can get a huge wine that isn’t a fruit bomb and doesn’t taste hot despite having high ABV.

I also do not add any sulfites to my wines untill they hit the bottle I use bioprotectant yeast and the dry ice to control spoilage I believe in having as minimal an impact on wine as possible only add what’s really needed honestly don’t add just to add.