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Foch Final Acid High

This was my first year making wine and I guess I should have tested my acid more often. Harvested Foch last Oct with a Brix of 18 and TA 9.2, PH 3.3.

I did nothing at crush other than add sugar.

I planned to ML and cold stabilize. The Foch went through ML until about mid December. My carboys were in my garage. I had to keep blankets around them with a grow mat heater between the carboys to keep the temp up above 60 degrees.

It never did get cold stabilized. I was too afraid to put it outside think temps too low might freeze it or crack the carboy. The garage never got cold enough with our warm winter.

Anyway.....after bottling in May, the TA is 8.75. I'll drink it (cause I made it)....but it's a little nippy!

Questions:

1) Is there a chance the wine will settle to a lower TA over time? To learn from mistakes, I want to address the TA issue next year right up front: 2) Has anyone used chemical methods to lower the TA at crush (or soon after)? If so, what do you recommend? Any down side to this?

Herman

Reply to
Herman Krug
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Absolutely; lower it at crush. I doubt it will ever come around on it's own but you can certainly lower it now with Potassium Bicarbonate (or Carbonate if that is available). Cold stabilizing would help too, can you get it to 25F? If not 40 F for a month or so may work too if you seed it. You treat it warm, then cool it to drop the tartrates.

I use calcium carbonate on hybrids at crush. I figure out how much I need, segregate 40% of the must and add all the calcium carbonate to it. It foams and turns black and is revolting looking. That glop goes back into the rest, (leaving the sediment behind).

I really don't like reds much above 6g/l; I have a Chancellor that is drinkable now from 97, if the acid were lower it would be perfect. I bottled it at 7.5 g/l TA....

Joe

Reply to
Joe Sallustio

Joe, by "Carbonate" do you mean Calcium Carbonate that is used to lower acid in Rhubarb recipes? I''m not very familiar with these various chemicals.

Thanks

Reply to
Wino-Nouveau

Herman - You can do lots to lower acid in Foch or other high acid grapes.

  1. Amelioration - Foch has lots of flavor and color. You could dilute the juice with water, say 10% and still make a nice wine. This would have reduced the 9.2 acid to about 8.3 grams/liter. It's not a direct reduction because the added water makes potassium bitartrate more soluble in the finished wine.
  2. Cold soaking before fermentation - An example from my 2005 Vignoles. The starting acid was 9.5 grams/liter. I cold soaked the must for 3 days at about 30F. This dropped a lot of acid and the must tested at 8 grams/liter before fermentation, a 15.8% reduction.
  3. Malo-Lactic fermentation after yeast fermentation is complete - An example from my 2005 Chambourcin. The starting acid was 9.7 grams/liter. After yeast fermentation and ML (followed by further cold conditioning) was complete the wine tested at 6.9 grams/liter, a 28.9% reduction.
  4. Chemical acid reduction - When I do this I use potassium bicarbonate. Each 0.9 grams/liter K bicarb. added will reduce acid by 1.0 grams/liter. You have to be careful when doing this because pH can rise too much. I first calculate how much acid I want to eliminate. Then I weigh up the amount of K bicarb. needed to neutralize the acid. I put a pH probe in the vat of wine and add the K bicarb. slowly, watching the pH. I stop K bicarb. addition before pH gets too high even if I cannot add all the K bicarb.

I used to grow Leon Millot, a cousin of Foch. In 2002 the starting acid was

9.0 grams/liter at harvest. I put a sample in the frig. overnight and another sample in the freezer. After warming the samples up the next day the acid tested at 7.8 and 5.0 grams/liter respectively. From those tests I knew I could reduce acid with pre fermentation cold soaking. I cold soaked the must for 7 days (excessive) at about 30F. This reduced the starting acid to 6.3 grams/liter.

Good luck!

Bill Frazier Olathe, Kansas USA

Reply to
William Frazier

Well I use calcium carbonate or potassium bicarbonate, that's all I can get locally. I think Tom S usually recommends potassium carbonate though, that is what I was referring to.

Joe

W> > Absolutely; lower it at crush. I doubt it will ever come around on

Reply to
Joe Sallustio

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