Miserable PH Meters

[AXIOM]

When I was a wine newbie (many moons ago), I relied upon simple PH strips for PH testing..... Back in those days, digital PH meters were difficult to come by without spending a fortune on them.... But as prices began to drop and smaller meters were being produced, I finally started using the small digital meters....

I was loving the things due to their accuracy and simplicity of use (or so I thought LOL) ... Yep, you guessed it, over time the accuracy of my first digital meter got way off... When I say way off, I literally am talking about 2 points on the PH scale..... At the time though, I did not know this was occurring.... However, I noticed that my wines were all beginning to become very acidic and tart..... Of course, this was entirely due to myself adding too much acid because of the faulty reading of my PH meter... Needless to say, I had quite a few large batches of wine that became over acidic until I finally figured out that my Meter was to blame.... I have since purchased better quality meters...

So, I don't know what many of you folks do in regards to your acid testing but nowadays I use BOTH PH strips as well as PH meters at the same time, each and every time I test acidity. That way if my meter either becomes faulty or is not calibrated for some reason then the strips will allow me to see that.... Of course, I also do acid titration testing as well but as far as the PH is concerned, I will not trust just using inaccurate strips alone but I will also not trust using just the one meter alone. Call me paranoid but when you start having to deal with large batches of overly acidic wine and have to go to the extra trouble of trying to lower the acidity, then the use of a test strip along with a meter can save a lot of headaches.... Better yet, would be to use two PH meters at the same time.

 

[Scooter68]

You are checking and correctly calibrating the pH meter with fresh buffer solution right?

Regardless of how much you pay for a pH meter, they ALL have to be re-calibrated occasionally. Some more often that others. I normally try to check mine every 2-3 months at least. Even that is a bit long by some folks standards.

Still using my first meter and it was a $20.00 unit on Amazon. Since I bought it I've seen the same on for sale at $49.00 to $69.00.

I've purchase a replacement but haven't yet put it into service.
If your meter is within .05 of the right number I wouldn't worry much.

 

[Sage]

If you use 2 meters, which one are you going to trust?

 

[AXIOM]

yeah, I calibrate each and every time I use one via buffer solutions..... There was something wrong with that first PH meter though..... The good news is that it taught me a valuable lesson about not trusting a reading from just one device..... I ended up drinking lots of overly acidic wine back then LOL..... That was a very long time ago but I still chuckle about what I went through and about the large amounts of wine that got overly acidified LOL.... I am one who is VERY picky about my wine acids and I simply refuse to trust a reading even after calibrating due to what happened to me... So, I often times use two meters at the same time and compare their results.

 

[AXIOM]

If you use 2 meters, which one are you going to trust?

Not likely that both meters would be faulty at the same time.... Although with my luck that will probably happen ....That's another reason why I use test strips along with a digital meter.

 

[AXIOM]

You are checking and correctly calibrating the pH meter with fresh buffer solution right?

Regardless of how much you pay for a pH meter, they ALL have to be re-calibrated occasionally. Some more often that others. I normally try to check mine every 2-3 months at least. Even that is a bit long by some folks standards.

Still using my first meter and it was a $20.00 unit on Amazon. Since I bought it I've seen the same on for sale at $49.00 to $69.00.

I've purchase a replacement but haven't yet put it into service.
If your meter is within .05 of the right number I wouldn't worry much.

I calibrate my meter before each use as I am sort of picky about my wine acids...... That first meter I had was WAY OFF.... Instead of having a reading of 3.5, it would indicate that it was 5.5 ..... I have all new meters nowadays and they are far superior to the first one I just mentioned..... Like you say, they all need to be calibrated and I do this before each use....

 

[Ajmassa]

. I was loving the things due to their accuracy and simplicity of use (or so I thought LOL) ... Yep, you guessed it, over time the accuracy of my first digital meter got way off....

I was under the impression that even the highest quality meters still have a shelf life on the probe. And the probes often need to be replaced after a couple years of use—- regardless of proper care/preventative maintenance.

 

[AXIOM]

I was under the impression that even the highest quality meters still have a shelf life on the probe. And the probes often need to be replaced after a couple years of use—- regardless of proper care/preventative maintenance.

You would be correct in that assumption .... HOWEVER, a person can make their meters last longer and provide accurate readings by simple maintenance and cleaning. Again, this is why I use PH strips in conjunction with meter readings..... They have made a lot of progress with PH strips nowadays and the type I use are specifically for the wine range (3.0 - 4.0) and so it's easy to determine if you have a "must" that is at 3.2 or 3.3 with those type of strips as they are graduated in small increments.

 

[Scooter68]

Gave up on pH strips immediately. BlueBerry, Blackberry and most of the fruit wines I make defy one to get an accurate reading with paper strips.

As to that first meter, yup sounds like the bulb or board got buggered somehow.

 

[jsbeckton]

I find the strips to be too subjective to be much use; at least to my eye.

Just keep 2 cheap meters on hand. When one of the the two become out of sync after recalibration buy another one because you are back down to only one good meter.

 

[AXIOM]

I find the strips to be too subjective to be much use; at least to my eye.

Just keep 2 cheap meters on hand. When one of the the two become out of sync after recalibration buy another one because you are back down to only one good meter.

yep, I agree and have multiple meters ... However, I don't find the newer strips to be subjective at all.... Sure it's easier to read a number on a screen rather than to try to match a color against a color on a chart but some of these Companies are producing some very accurate and easy reading strips that are not in the slightest hard to read unless you have problems with colors (such as color blindness) or something similar.... Only a digital PH meter will do in that type of a situation ... But I don't have color blindness and those newer strips work very nice with no subjectivity.

When all of the faulty PH readings happened to me because of that first meter that I owned, it was more than 30 some years ago, and I was a beginning wine maker way back then.... I did not have the level of knowledge at that time that I do now and so I did not know that I could reduce the acidity.... I simply put up with it and ended up drinking overly acidic wine LOL ........... Another problem with some of these digital PH meters is that you can still get weird readings even after you just calibrated them......... I try my best nowadays to produce only quality wines and one of the components of a quality wine is getting the acids adjusted properly. Because of that fact, I am very picky about the acids in my wines.... I want to TRUST the readings I take and the only logical way a person can do that is to take readings from two disparate methods.... I mean, my Gosh, it only takes a few seconds to wet a PH strip with "must" for a test.... It's not like I am going way out of my way to make an additional test..... I can be lazy but not that lazy.... It's always better to over-test than to under-test....

 

[Bts]

This is why I was thrilled to find out about the cream of tartar trick. A PH of 3.56 is close enough to my target PH that I can mostly just interpret the meter as high, low, or reasonable. It might be wildly inaccurate outside wine range, but it's reasonably OK at the one spot I care about. I still use strips as a sanity check, but for reds those test strips are impossible to read with any confidence :/

 

[Ajmassa]

This is why I was thrilled to find out about the cream of tartar trick. A PH of 3.56 is close enough to my target PH that I can mostly just interpret the meter as high, low, or reasonable. It might be wildly inaccurate outside wine range, but it's reasonably OK at the one spot I care about. I still use strips as a sanity check, but for reds those test strips are impossible to read with any confidence :/

I just removed acid post fermentation for the first time using chems.

Beforehand I did bench trials to figure my preferred dosage. Going through that process I was way too hung up on the ph & TA initially- taking tests before & after dosing, then again after freezing/thawing. Added so much unnecessary time. And in the end I realized that I didn’t need to do any of that at all. All decisions were based on taste. And only needed ph to make sure it was still in a safe range.

Ironic side note— the whole reason I needed to remove acid was because I initially added tartaric targeting 3.6 (post fermentation). Ideal ph. Not ideal taste.

 

[AXIOM]

This is why I was thrilled to find out about the cream of tartar trick. A PH of 3.56 is close enough to my target PH that I can mostly just interpret the meter as high, low, or reasonable. It might be wildly inaccurate outside wine range, but it's reasonably OK at the one spot I care about. I still use strips as a sanity check, but for reds those test strips are impossible to read with any confidence :/

For times when I am doing a darker wine, then I use two meters but for lighter wines I use a strip along with a meter.... The strips have come a long way since I started making wine over 30 years ago as they are easier to read and more accurate than in times past.... I would never rely on just PH strips alone, nor would I rely on just a meter alone.... But, that's just my own paranoia because of all of the problems I had with meters when I first started making wine. Also, the ole taste buds can go a long way in helping us out

 

[AXIOM]

I just removed acid post fermentation for the first time using chems.

Beforehand I did bench trials to figure my preferred dosage. Going through that process I was way too hung up on the ph & TA initially- taking tests before & after dosing, then again after freezing/thawing. Added so much unnecessary time. And in the end I realized that I didn’t need to do any of that at all. All decisions were based on taste. And only needed ph to make sure it was still in a safe range.

Ironic side note— the whole reason I needed to remove acid was because I initially added tartaric targeting 3.6 (post fermentation). Ideal ph. Not ideal taste.

Yep, the ole taste buds can sometimes be the best acid tool we have .... But because of variations in vegetables and fruits, it's often difficult to ascertain what's happening in the must without the use of meters and titration testing.... Bananas come to mind... They are very high in malic acid but low in many of the others.... The ole tongue would have trouble figuring out PH with a fruit such as that.... The problem with myself is that I suppose I am too picky about the acids in my musts

 

[Rice_Guy]

This is why I was thrilled to find out about the cream of tartar trick. :/

Trick ?.? Are you meaning seed with cream of tartar?

 

[mainshipfred]

This is why I was thrilled to find out about the cream of tartar trick. A PH of 3.56 is close enough to my target PH that I can mostly just interpret the meter as high, low, or reasonable. It might be wildly inaccurate outside wine range, but it's reasonably OK at the one spot I care about. I still use strips as a sanity check, but for reds those test strips are impossible to read with any confidence :/

Someone once told me or I read you should use a 3 point calibration for ph meters. So I've also been using the cream of tartar as my third point. What I don't understand is if you would use the 7 and 4 to calibrate how would the final reading be 2 points off.

 

[Chuck E]

Someone once told me or I read you should use a 3 point calibration for ph meters. So I've also been using the cream of tartar as my third point. What I don't understand is if you would use the 7 and 4 to calibrate how would the final reading be 2 points off.

What is the cream of tartar trick?

 

[mainshipfred]

What is the cream of tartar trick?

A fully saturated solution of Cream of tartar will always be 3.56 ph within +/- .02. So add enough cream of tartar to a volume of distilled water so there is some left that doesn't dissolve and that would be fully saturated.

 

[Chuck E]

A fully saturated solution of Cream of tartar will always be 3.56 ph within +/- .02. So add enough cream of tartar to a volume of distilled water so there is some left that doesn't dissolve and that would be fully saturated.

Thanks for the tip!