moving into red wine making

[jazzibear]

Yes, I do have some fly paper hanging, it helps. As long as I can keep them out of the wine, it should be fine.

 

[RedPlanetWinery]

Hyatt Hill Vineyard (fallbright) on Keuka lake sells juice and they also keep some of the skins when they press so they are available for those who want to use them. I just put some into a drawstring mesh bag. They are the only vineyard I've gone to but I assume the others around here who sell juice do the same thing.

 

[jazzibear]

Hyatt Hill Vineyard (fallbright) on Keuka lake sells juice and they also keep some of the skins when they press so they are available for those who want to use them. I just put some into a drawstring mesh bag. They are the only vineyard I've gone to but I assume the others around here who sell juice do the same thing.

I actually got the grapes and the Chambourcin juice from Fall Bright. I noticed, while I was waiting in line, that some people were getting skins to go with the juice. I also got some of my juice (white wine) from Fulkersons and the vast majority of my juices from Randall Standish. Randall Standish is a lot closer to where I live. I'm just checking out all the places. I got kind of a late start on this hobby, starting with cider in late November of last year. By February, I was starting to get hooked on it and I wanted to try grape juice. The only place nearby (that I could find) with juice in February was Walkers out by Buffalo, so I got juice there. That's about 2 1/2 hours away. Now that it's the season, I'm checking out all of the closer places. Do you know anything about the club called Rochester Area Home Winemakers? We were thinking about possibly finding out about going to a meeting and possibly joining, but don't really know much about it. The website shows the next meeting as being in November. You sound like you may be from my general area, although I could be wrong. If that's the case, I thought you may know something about them.

 

[RedPlanetWinery]

I am in Groton. Guess I should modify my profile. My story sounds a lot like yours - made hard cider for the first time last fall, decided to try wine kits early this year (have kits 12-15 in progress right now), decided to try fresh grapes using the Concords in my back yard this fall, then picked up Foch and Chambourcin from Fall Bright this past Sunday. Would be very interested to see your pH and TA readings for the Chambourcin to compare with mine since Marcy hasn't posted any yet on their site.

 

[jazzibear]

Well, we're getting juice out of the same Finger Lakes region, just originating from different ends of that region.

I didn't test the acid level of the Chamborcin and I've already blended it with Chancellor grapes, Noiret juice and Vincent juice. Actually, I just got a PH meter in the mail yesterday, and I think the Sodium Hydroxide I've been using to test acidity may be expired. I'm really new at testing PH and acidity. I have some wines from last winters juices which tasted overly acidic to me, so I used acid reducing crystals and have them cold stabilizing in a spare refrigerator. Since the arrival of the PH meter, I've tested the acidity (with Sodium Hydroxide that might be expired from an old titration kit) and it seems they are not as overly acidic as I thought. One of them in particular (a peach) seems to have an acidity of .7% (which is fine) and a PH of 4.09, which is not fine. Now I'm worried about spoilage. Anyway, I don't mean to ramble, and you really just wanted to know the acidity of the Chamborcin I have here, but acidity is a topic that is currently driving me crazy. Are you testing your acidity with a PH meter and Sodium Hydroxide, or some other way? I will never judge acidity by taste again. From the wineries that do provide TA levels, a lot of levels around here do seem high. For the red wine that I'm making, I plan on doing malolactic fermentation, so that should help. I think some of the grapes were just picked before they were ripe.

 

[jazzibear]

While I didn't check the acidity of the Chamborcin before combining it with the other red juices and grapes, I did check it on the blend. I got a PH of 3.14 and the TA is more than 1.0%. I don't know how to get TA amounts above 1.0%. Using my titration kit and new PH meter, I put 15 cc of juice in a container and got the PH. I used 10 cc of .2N sodium hydroxide solution and ended up putting the entire 10 ml of it and the PH only went up to 5.41. It never made it to 8.2. I'm not even close to being any kind of chemistry whiz, so I have no idea what that ends up being. Even at that, I don't know if my sodium hydroxide is still good. I bought it this past winter, but I'm not sure if I stored it or handled it correctly. I don't know if it's too late to reduce the acid with calcium carbonate since the fermentation is already started.

 

[JohnT]

For fruit flies, you can also try a vacuum cleaner with a hose attachment. Seems like I can get a lot of them that way.

 

[jazzibear]

For fruit flies, you can also try a vacuum cleaner with a hose attachment. Seems like I can get a lot of them that way.

Another great idea. Your bucket press suggestion convinced me to delve into fermenting with grapes. I might just do straight grapes without juice for the red wines next year. I'm even considering building a frame with a car jack for a bucket press at some point if all goes well, not this year though. Otherwise, I might just buy a press next year....we'll see how it all works out with this years grapes.

 

[jazzibear]

Any thoughts on dealing with TA and PH levels? I guess if you get the right grapes, they will already be in balance. I think the calcium carbonate is supposed to be used before fermentation, not sure about now, which is just the early part of fermentation. I know my PH needs to be right before I can try malolactic fermentation. I'm just barely within range with the PH, not sure what will happen when I press these grapes, some of which might be under-ripe.

 

[RedPlanetWinery]

I see you posted in my thread about acid levels so you can see what I had for pH and TA on the Chambourcin. I had to add 14ml of sodium hydroxide to get my pH meter to 8.2, which is how I got my 1.4TA number. I had the same situation as you with my home grown Concord grapes - added the first 10ml and that wasn't enough. I pulled another 10ml into the syringe and kept going. That ended up at 1.4 as well. I knew a fair amount of the Concord was under-ripe so I was surprised to see the Chambourcin come in that high. We have had a lot of cool and cloudy weather in the Fingerlakes region this year so I was told to expect things to be challenging when it came to acid levels.
I have read that you can add calcium carbonate to young wines. My thought was to get the juice to a pH of 3.1, get it through primary fermentation, adjust pH to 3.2 with calcium carbonate if needed, then do MLF, then cold stabilize. I am fermenting the Concord, Foch and Chambourcin seperately and then plan to experiment with blending and back-sweetening after the cold stabilization is complete.

 

[jazzibear]

I see you posted in my thread about acid levels so you can see what I had for pH and TA on the Chambourcin. I had to add 14ml of sodium hydroxide to get my pH meter to 8.2, which is how I got my 1.4TA number. I had the same situation as you with my home grown Concord grapes - added the first 10ml and that wasn't enough. I pulled another 10ml into the syringe and kept going. That ended up at 1.4 as well. I knew a fair amount of the Concord was under-ripe so I was surprised to see the Chambourcin come in that high. We have had a lot of cool and cloudy weather in the Fingerlakes region this year so I was told to expect things to be challenging when it came to acid levels.
I have read that you can add calcium carbonate to young wines. My thought was to get the juice to a pH of 3.1, get it through primary fermentation, adjust pH to 3.2 with calcium carbonate if needed, then do MLF, then cold stabilize. I am fermenting the Concord, Foch and Chambourcin seperately and then plan to experiment with blending and back-sweetening after the cold stabilization is complete.

That makes sense regarding how you got 1.4 for the TA. It's so logical, I don't know why I didn't think of that. I will do it that way in the future.

It does make sense to do the juices separately and blend them at the end. The reason I ended up blending them is so that everything gets contact with the skins; since I only got one kind of grapes and the rest were juices only, it works in my case. By the descriptions of the grapes I found online, they should blend well; the flavors do seem to be blending well so far. The way that you are doing it, by fermenting them separately, I think is generally considered the better way to do it. You will end up with a variety of different blends and some varietals, depending on how your bench tastings go. I will just have a big thing of my "house red", which is fine with me if it's good. I'm just looking for a full bodied, slightly oaky, dry red wine. For my white wines, on the other hand, I'm doing a variety of different juices and I'm trying for fruity, crisp, not as dry type white wines. They will be blended.

I'm glad to hear that calcium carbonate can be added after fermentation. I was looking all over the place for something saying that. I just found where it said to use it before fermentation, nothing against using it after, but also nothing for it. Did you notice anything specifically saying not to add it during fermentation, like right now? I've read MLF can be picky and want everything to go smoothly. I'm spending way too much time thinking about winemaking these days... anxiously waiting and worrying about it.

 

[RedPlanetWinery]

Doing some more internet searching, I came across a post at a different forum site that noted that when adding calcium carbonate after fermentation, the fine particles that result will remain in suspension, creating a wine that is hard to clear. They suggest that you use potassium carbonate or bicarbonate if adding after fermentation, although they note that the resulting salts from that process are soluble. After that read, I think that if my pH after primary ferment is at least 3.1, I probably won't make any adjustment before MLF and hope for the best. If I do have to adjust, I'll use potassium bicarb. Personal note for next time is to be more patient and make multiple adjustments with calcium carb to get as close as I can to pH3.4 prior to ferment without exceeding the recommended max adjustment. If, after MLF and cold stabilization the wine is still too acidic, I'll consider bringing a higher pH commercial wine into the blend (unless I stumble across a better technique by then).

 

[jazzibear]

I think with potassium bicarbonate, you are supposed to cold stabilize afterwards. I don't think I want to do that before MLF, I want to just go straight from fermentation to MLF. The malolactic bacteria that I ordered is this: http://morewinemaking.com/products/dry-malolactic-bacteria-enoferm-beta-25.html which, from the description, I thought should be a less finicky one... but even that requires a PH over 3.2 If it's just a matter of particles settling, I might be able to deal with that and just use the calcium carbonate now. There will be plenty of time for it to settle. Also, I have a wine filter (keep buying stuff for this hobby, it's not good), so I could just filter it in the end before bottling. Even a course filter would get rid of that I think.

 

[jazzibear]

This chemistry aspect of winemaking is really driving me crazy. The instructions on the calcium carbonate, and everything I'm finding online, just say how much to add to reduce the TA. I think it's the same with potassium bicarbonate. I'm not concerned about the TA, I'm trying to increase the PH.

 

[jazzibear]

I just added something to the "Yeast, Additive and Winemaking Science" forum: http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/f86/raising-ph-above-3-2-prior-mlf-47312/#post535739 (I don't know if that's how to reference another post), but we'll see if anyone else in that forum has something to say about it.