I am still playing around with a batch of blackberry I made a few months ago. I checked, and it has a post-ferment TA of about 1.4%. Pretty nasty stuff!
I did try an experiment. I removed about 750ml of wine and put into a bottle. I added some cream of tartar, capped it, and put the resulting brew in the fridge. A few weeks later, there is do discernable precipitate in the bottle.
If I can't cold stabilize in a freezer, is my next step to try MLF on the wine? According to Jack Kellar's web site, blackberries are mostly malic acid. If I do MLF on 2/3 of my current supply and then mix back in the 1/3 when MLF is done, then I should have a TA of about .46, well within what country wines should be.
Can I start a natural MLF, or do I need to get a culture from a wine shop? Are there any national brands that have a live culture in them that I could use (like making homemade yogurt)?
On another note, I should have adjusted my TA pre-ferment. With a TA of 1.4, what would have been the best way to do this? Adding a bicarbonate is only recommended to adjust by about .3% What about stepping up a notch and adding a strong solution of potassium hydroxide to neutralize the acid?
If I could get some really concentrated KOH, then I could do this on my wine right now. Right now all I can get is 10%, so I would need to add about the same volume of base to my wine, so the volume would almost double.
Thanks!
Alex.