chardonnay juice low brix/acid fizzy

I wouldn't worry about it. So it started without you. So what? The wine will probably be good anyway, but now it's up to you not to screw it up. Sounds like it's down to ~17° Brix, and well under way, and the TA is in the normal range.

Think of it as discovering that your new girlfriend is not a virgin. She might be a _lot_ better than you expect! ;^)

Tom S

Wow, interesting analogy.

Yes, it's fermenting and no, I doubt you have a problem. Anyway, I get California juice in Pittsburgh so it comes a long way to get to me. The only way to make sure it is not fermenting when I get it is to buy it the day it arrives.

There are probably values posted on the buckets if this came from a packing house, so just use those values as a guide. If it came from California, there is no way the brix was low, so I would not worry about it either. If it came from the Northeast, I might try to find out what value it was originally, but those numbers sound ok to me too. I might still pitch the yeast you wanted originally, but that is your call. Regards, Joe

Will this help or hinder? Won't the yeast "battle it out" for dominance until the stronger prevails? In which case the ferment would be interrupted until a victor was determined, although presumably the wine yeast would win out over the natural yeast. If not, what will be the result of a mixture of yeast types?

I know that _prior_ to fermentation, we add sulfite to stun the wild yeast, and then pitch a cultured wine yeast --- but is this wise during fermentation?

Not criticizing. Just curious.

I would add a cultured strain to this fermentation, but not any sulfite. The cultured and wild strains won't stop fermenting while they "battle it out", but the wild strain may not be able to finish the job on its own. BTW, spontaneous ML is probably also going on in there as well.

Tom S

I added sulfite last night.

I placed them in my fridge. I was going to set the temp at 60° F

It came from California. Lodi valley?

There were no values on the bucket... It sat in the truck cause the guy never contacted me to let me know the juice and grapes were in...

I guess it depends on the strain you select, but most cultured yeasts seem to take off pretty quickly.

K1V1116 from Lalvin actually takes over for sure, and it's a pretty decent all purpose yeast. I use mostly Lalvin yeast and all of them take off within 2 days, I have never had a really slow grape wine fermentation.

As to which wins out, all that matters is that one of them gets it to completion for me. Some yeast produce H2S more than others, but I'm not saying a wild yeast is necessarily bad or even does this, just that's it's an unknown quantity. 5 grams of wine yeast is under $1, it's cheap insurance.

I would not sulfite a fermenting must, even if it was fermenting with wild yeast. I would just pitch the cultured yeast. Pailed juice is almost always sulfited to at least 100 PPM so adding sulfite may not be a good idea with pailed juice (especially if the existing sulfite content is unknown.) Regards, Joe

My local supplier was trying to get rid of his last grapes and juice. He put a nice discount on them and I picked up some Alexanders viognier yesterday. Although refrigerated, the stuff had already fermented down to 15 brix when I measured it at home. I tossed in some cotes de blanc and am hoping for the best. I also picked some up some syrah juice and stuck it in my freezer. How far it fermented, I don't know. I plan to throw my chambourcin skins in it when I pick in 2 weeks. Tim

Personally, I wouldn't use CdB on Viognier unless I wanted to finish it off-dry. OTOH, the wild fermentation is probably going to be the dominant one in this case, and it'll probably go dry with that. I'd recommend that you get some yeast nutrient in there for sure unless you plan to bottle it sweet or don't worry about the possibility of H2S formation.

Tom S

I racked each to a secondary now. The reading was 1.003 and 1.0002

The TA was .660 Is this something I should be concerned with? I will be adding some Oak shortly.

I wouldn't necessarily worry about the TA, but what was the pH?

Also, why didn't you add the oak right at the outset? That's the best time for _any_ addition. It's an overlooked issue, but barrel fermentation gets the oak and fruit up close and personal very early. The flavors integrate much better when they are introduced to each other early. Same goes for acid adjustments - except moreso.

FWIW, if you add oak late, leave the yeast lees in there too, and stir it every few months. As always, keep the free SO2 where it should be for the pH of the wine.

Tom S

I only added meta before I added the yeast.

Should I have added more when I racked?

I dunno what the PH is, I broke my meter.