South African Cab Sauv

[pgentile]

Ordered 30g of Reduless online this time. LHBS doesn't carry. Will give another treatment soon as it arrives.

 

[pgentile]

Ajmassa5983 hi, as I read in another thread, it sounds like addressing the low pH could be approached with blending with a high pH wine. But I'm curious to know what others think.

If I get the stink out of this finally, would any of you adjust the pH if you had nothing appropriate to blend with?

I haven't tested to see if the MLF went off or completed, but will when I rack from the next Reduless.

I would rather not go the copper route, although I am in a sense because reduless contains copper.

 

[Ajmassa]

I'm just starting to research raising pH, as I will also likely need to do this. I'm Not able to blend either. So all signs are pointing to potassium bicarbonate.
And FWIW, 2 batches with similar low pH both successfully went through MLF.

 

[Ajmassa]

This article breaks it all down nicely. It's kind of wordy and scientific, but the writer breaks it down well for people like us to understand.
http://wine.wsu.edu/research-extension/2010/10/managing-high-acidity/

 

[JohnT]

+1 on the answers provided by @pgentile .

Redueless is dead yeast cells that has been impregnated with copper, so in effect using redueless and treating with copper is the same thing.

so why go with redueless? It all comes down to control!

If you were to pouring your wine over a copper sheet, or send it through a copper pipe, you have no control over just how much copper you are adding.

For this reason, I started using copper sulfate. I always hated using copper sulfate because in higher concentrations, copper sulfate is toxic.

With Redueless, I had control over the copper dosage with it also being far less toxic. Awesome product!

 

[pgentile]

Thanks for the link AJ.

JohnT, makes sense, thanks

 

[pgentile]

Added second application of Reduless today. Odor is much diminished but still present, let's see what the next 72 hours brings.

 

[pgentile]

Good news, the second Reduless application succeeded. Well more likely the three splash racks and two Reduless applications over two weeks succeeded. I racked the Malbec today and the odor is gone. It actually smells and tastes like very young wine. pH is still 3.15. Malo is 100 mg/L +. Hydrometer reads .990.

One more request for advice on pH and Malo? What would you do?

 

[pgentile]

I'm still debating what to do if anything with this wine. Looks like my options are as follows:

1. Treat with Potassium BiCarbonate. Then cold stabilize. I'll have to rack to one gallon containers during cold stabilization, no room in refers for 5 gal carboy. How long does one keep it in the cold? Read that this process can strip aroma and flavor? And once through the cold period would pitching MLB make sense? Articles state do not attempt to adjust acid more than .3%, what would a .1, .2 or .3 % acid adjustment do to pH? Acid and pH inter-relation confuses me sometimes.

2. Blend with future batches or kits. I did this with kits and an overly sweat attempt at blackberry wine two+ years ago. All blended kits turned out good.

3. Leave alone and deal with the results. Probably not going to happen.

4. Curious as to how kit manufactures adjust kits, that they are not MLF recommended. Do they reduce the Malo some how? Do they add Lactose to balance? I thought I read something here a while ago but can't seem to find it. Can I take an approach similar to kit manufacturers?

On a good note the South African Cab is doing quite well. Still seeing small slow pinprick bubbles rising. Will check Malo in a few weeks.

 

[Johnd]

I'm still debating what to do if anything with this wine. Looks like my options are as follows:

1. Treat with Potassium BiCarbonate. Then cold stabilize. I'll have to rack to one gallon containers during cold stabilization, no room in refers for 5 gal carboy. How long does one keep it in the cold? Read that this process can strip aroma and flavor? And once through the cold period would pitching MLB make sense? Articles state do not attempt to adjust acid more than .3%, what would a .1, .2 or .3 % acid adjustment do to pH? Acid and pH inter-relation confuses me sometimes.

2. Blend with future batches or kits. I did this with kits and an overly sweat attempt at blackberry wine two+ years ago. All blended kits turned out good.

3. Leave alone and deal with the results. Probably not going to happen.

4. Curious as to how kit manufactures adjust kits, that they are not MLF recommended. Do they reduce the Malo some how? Do they add Lactose to balance? I thought I read something here a while ago but can't seem to find it. Can I take an approach similar to kit manufacturers?

On a good note the South African Cab is doing quite well. Still seeing small slow pinprick bubbles rising. Will check Malo in a few weeks.

We're it mine, and it needed to go through MLF, based on taste, I'd adjust it upward to a pH where MLF would succeed, then put it through MLF. At completion, give it some aging time and do more taste testing, and see where the pH/TA is post MLF. Remember that CS on a wine with a pH below 3.6 may actually drop the pH, so consider carefully your plan to CS. Personally, I'd store it in my wine room, and it would drop some crystals at 55F, but then would be ready to bottle and age at 55F without further precipitation.

Your other really decent option is to consider doing some sweetening to overcome the acidity, either with sugar to glycerin. I'd definitely do some bench trials to explore this option thoroughly.

Low pH wines are a little more challenging, but have some bright sides as well, less sulfite needed for protection, and they generally age well.

Keep posting and let us know what you decide!!

 

[Ajmassa]

1. The last time I was looking into this I'm pretty sure the ph and TA moved the same up and down. TA of .60% adjusted down to .50% would then have ph move one tenth decimal point. 3.15 to 3.25. According to morewine.com.
Also, isn't there a option that does NOT require CS? A small potassium bicarb addition just to slightly raise it?? You don't want to go too high anyway if your gonna add malo bacteria, which should be under 3.4 I read. Going up .15 to 3.3 seems very doable without tons of work. I was almost positive that small acid adjustments (1 g/L or so) could be done without cold stabilizing. Hopefully.

2. I personally would not blend fresh grapes from Gino Pintos with a kit ever.

3. Ph 3.15 isn't insane and even if you did nothing at all to acid I'd bet your Malbec would still end up just fine.
4. Sounds like you'd be making a complicated situation even more complicated.

If the fact-checking ends up legit, then I would simply:
Raise ph to 3.25-3.3 with a small Kbicarb addition (hoping your able to do this without CS).
Inoculate with a strong malo. And then as Johnd said "at completion, give it some aging time and do more taste testing, and see where the pH/TA is post MLF". Bing bang boom.
Btw, If you blend it with a kit i'll be angry and call you a quitter. [emoji23]

 

[pgentile]

Johnd & Ajmassa thanks for the advice. Going to take a another taste test tomorrow and decide to leave as is and age or raise pH slightly and then attempt MLF again. If I do try to raise it, I'll shoot for 3.3. No CS other than basement temp. If I don't go the potassium bicarb route and acidity remains an issue, I'll consider slight sweetening tests down the road.

I hear yah AJ my fresh grape wine will never touch kit wine, except maybe in my stomach.

 

[pgentile]

Hope I did this right. Added 6-2/3 tsp of k-bicarbonate to 5.5 gal of the Malbec this morning. Label said 1-1/3 tsp per gal. Wine had been most inert wine I had dealt with this young. Even during rackings after Reduless it did not appear to be degassing much or have much . It fizzed up adding the k-bicarb and appears to be degassing still and hour later. I'll wait a few weeks check pH and add MLB.

 

[pgentile]

6 days since I added k-bicarb to the Malbec, continuous pin-prick small slow bubbles since. MLF kicked in? Activity looks the same as the SF Sauv Cab as far as activity at 10 weeks out. I did pitch the lower pH tolerant MLB way back when.

Volume was a little short to the neck of the carboy, possible MLF activity wasn't visible until adding k-bicarb brought it up to the neck, so it could have been under way already.

Ordering Chromatology test kit, to know for sure, will test both batches after a few more weeks.

 

[Ajmassa]

Good move on the chroma test. Better off knowing for sure. I haven't had to raise ph at all yet, just a couple of 'almosts', so I'm rooting for ya. How long do you wait?
Very curious to see the results once you hit the lab with all your testing. I've got a feeling everything's gonna work out. Higher ph, malic acid gone, nasty smell fully removed and a SA Malbec ready to age gracefully.

 

[pgentile]

Not sure how much longer to wait. It's been 60+ days since MLB was added. The SA Cab Sauv has no kmeta yet. The Malbec has had a kmeta dose through all the issues. I think I'll test the Cab Sauv within the next few weeks and wait another 30 days for the Malbec.

 

[Ajmassa]

I meant how long to wait for the Kbicarb to work and check ph. Also I'm thinking the chroma test results will tell you what you need to do in terms of k-meta.
In a perfect world they both had successful MLF and can be sulfited right away. Which Malo culture did you use?

 

[pgentile]

I was planning to check pH at the same time as doing the Chromatology. I think in two more weeks. The Malo was Wyeast #4007 Malo Lactic Blend I couldn't get any VP41 at the time.

 

[pgentile]

Received the Chromatography kit yesterday. Going to test the Malbec, Cab Sauv and a kit Cab Sauv on Saturday. The instruction seem straight forward. Anything that I should be aware of outside of the instructions? And is it actually best to dry outside?

 

[stickman]

It is normally not recommended to dry with sun exposure.