Why would cold stabilizing reduce the PH even more? If anything I would think some acid might drop out as crystals, which then I could rack... to get a higher PH and a smoother taste.
Let's say the kit came in at 3.5. I can see shorting it would increase the acidity, but shorting it a 1/2 gallon shouldn't make this much of a difference. And with it having degassed and heated to remove carbonic acid from the sample, shouldn't I have gotten something higher than PH 3.08? Even if the starting PH was say 3.4, is it normal to see this kind of spread in a young wine?
In response to your first question, the answer isn't a simple one, but let's just understand that at pH's below 3.65, you can precipitate out some acid by CS, and it will lower your TA, but may well decrease your pH. At pH's above 3.65, your wine will behave as you expect in response to CS. Much discussion of this topic has taken place here over the years, I've attached an article for your review, it does a much better job explaining the chemical relationships and expected results of CS on wines of varying pH levels.
https://extension.psu.edu/cold-stabilization-options-for-wineries
As far as the second question, I can't tell you what to expect as "normal" in your kit wine, I never really bothered to mess around with pH with kits when I was still making them, and I didn't short the water additions when making them, so I've no experience to share with you. I will say that if you've made your kit to 5.5 gallons instead of 6 gallons, that you've shorted the water by nearly 10%. pH isn't a linear relationship, it's logarithmic, so it won't behave in a linear fashion, ie: decreasing the water by 10% won't result in a 10% decrease in pH, but if it did (a big but), pH intended to be 3.4 at 6 gallons would equate to a pH (10% lower) of 3.06 at 5.5 gallons. Again, understand that the relationship isn't linear, I'm only offering some food for thought, it may not get that low, it may get lower. One of the beautiful things about kit winemaking is that the chemistry is done for you, presumably by some well educated wine chemistry folks who have tested these things enough to ensure a good outcome.
Nuff said about that. Lots of folks are shorting cheap kits to increase body / ABV without a myriad of problems, and most don't ever test for pH, or do so with hard to read pH strips. Your wine isn't 4 months old yet, give it some time to go through the chemical changes that wines go through before you decide that you need to start monkeying around with the pH and / or TA. I can't recall ever making a "yummy at 4 months old wine", they are usually fruity, but green, disjointed, bitter, and sharp. Wines can, and will change a lot early in their lives, making changes too early with an uneducated palate may result in a worse outcome than if you wait. I'm really good at tasting mature, bottled wines and evaluating them, but I'm terrible with young wines that are early in the process, I don't have enough experience, and don't even try to mess with them until they're totally degassed, cleared, and aged at least a year. As stated earlier, your focus on adjusting acidity post fermentation, unless you have some major problem, should be based upon taste, not numbers, through bench trials with wines that are ready to be tasted and adjusted. Put the carboy aside, airlock it, and start some new wines, let's see what you have in June or July. Just my two cents.
,guess its time to crawl in bed for a nap
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