L’uva Bello Juice Buckets

[mgarnto]

Hi yall, has anyone made a L’uva Bello juice bucket recently?

I got a cab sauv and Pinot Grigio from them recently. The TA on both was bad. When I got each bucket I checked SO2 with my sc-300, brought them up to 50ppm let them sit 24 hours, stirred, and then did my testing.

The cab sauv came in at a 3.3 pH with 3.6g TA. I didn’t have time to deal with it that weekend (researching how to fix TA that bad) so I pitched yeast and will retest after secondary ferm finishes up in the next few days.

The Pinot Grigio came in at 3.77 pH and 1.7 TA. I added 12g tartaric acid which brought it to 3.4 pH and 3.2 TA. I added another 6g then pitched yeast and will retest when it finishes.

Both of those TA’s are really bad with what I’m reading. The only thing I could think of is maybe my titrant solution is bad? The kit is brand new but I ordered more NAOH to rule out that possibility.

Has anyone else experienced this?

 

[cmason1957]

I think you should reserve judgment until you get fresh NAOH. My guess is yours is not the normality you belive it to be. I would think both of those would taste very bland at that low a TA.

 

[mgarnto]

I think you should reserve judgment until you get fresh NAOH. My guess is yours is not the normality you belive it to be. I would think both of those would taste very bland at that low a TA.

Yes that’s the only explanation I have at this point. I tested 2 different brands of cal fluid for the pH meter, and tested after my wine tests to ensure it was good. I have the vinmetrica standard NAOH that came with the sc-300 and followed their videos+written instructions.

If the pH meter is good and I’m doing the tests appropriately then that leaves only the wine or NAOH as the issue.

I reckon we’ll see once the new NAOH gets in. I ordered just a .1 standard, so I’ll change the formulas to account for that.

 

[sour_grapes]

In the meantime, you could test the TA of a commercial wine, just to see if you can get in the ballpark.

 

[CDrew]

What I remember, and that may be faulty, is that Vinmetrica uses non-standard solutions of NaOH. So if there is any doubt, get new solution. It's easy to get 0.1n NaOH on Amazon but the Vinmetrica stuff has to come from them. Vinmetrica changes the concentration to make the calculations more intuitive, but to me, it makes more sense to use standard chemicals and just do the math. None of it is difficult.

But a 1.7 TA is so out of range, that I'd have to question the method to determine that. Even the worst grapes I've dealt with had a TA of 4, so 1.7 seems weirdly low.

 

[mgarnto]

What I remember, and that may be faulty, is that Vinmetrica uses non-standard solutions of NaOH. So if there is any doubt, get new solution. It's easy to get 0.1n NaOH on Amazon but the Vinmetrica stuff has to come from them. Vinmetrica changes the concentration to make the calculations more intuitive, but to me, it makes more sense to use standard chemicals and just do the math. None of it is difficult.

But a 1.7 TA is so out of range, that I'd have to question the method to determine that. Even the worst grapes I've dealt with had a TA of 4, so 1.7 seems weirdly low.

You are correct the Vinmetrica standard is supposed to be .133 which simplifies the calculations needed. The calculations are simple either way, and Fermcalc makes it even easier.

Now that I have 2 buckets with this issue my bet is on the NAOH being off. Which is weird since it’s brand new, but my googling tells me NAOH isn’t super stable to begin with.

 

[mgarnto]

In the meantime, you could test the TA of a commercial wine, just to see if you can get in the ballpark.

Good idea! We don’t have any commercial stuff in the house, but I’m starting an LE20 Synergy kit tonight. I can test it before pitching yeast. If it’s way off then I guess it’s 99% the NAOH.