Numbers from Chard and Merlot

That's ~25.5° Brix. Should make a good wine - perhaps even a kick-ass wine - but you gotta get the pH down. Hit it with enough tartaric to get it to at _most_ 3.5 - and 3.4 would be better. Don't worry about the TA. It'll drop out when you chill the wine.

That's ~23° Brix. Pretty normal, but IMO the pH is too high. I'd hit it with tartaric to knock it down to 3.4 - 3.5 or so. It'll rise again after ML, but it'd be a lot worse off if you did nothing right now. As I said before, don't sweat the TA. That'll drop out later.

Tom S

I plan to add a malo culture to both od these..

Does this change your comments?

I just worked on the merlot. I might have had some errors yesterday.

I checked again PH 3.80 SG 1.100

I don't have tartric acid. So I lowerd the PH with acid blend.

New PH 3.50 New TA .78

It is a bit hard to stirr up in the bucket, all the solid grapes. I am going to check again after it has time to mix. The yeast is really kicking in now...

I adjusted the Chard

PH 3.45 TA 1.00 SG 1.100 (it is fermenting)

Pete, You would have been better off with tartaric only, it drops out when you cold stabilize. Acid blend has citric and malic too; depending on the type of malic, it may or may not be converted by your MLF. It's done now, don't sweat it. Just get some tartaric for next time, it stores well...

MLF is not a bad idea on either of those and it would not change anything Tom said (in my opinion).

Joe

My order 1 lb of it.. I have 400 lbs of cabernet I will be working with shortly.

I took a taste of the merlot. it was rather bland. The acid did add something.. Nothing like my tart blueberry I am conditioning...

I had to pick my chambourcin in a rush. The wasps were killing it. The vineyard brix probably averages 22. The TA is about .9 or a little below. Not sure as I froze the grapes whole. Not bad for Philadelphia. Thanks for all the help. I think I got about 240 pounds. Tim

SG is .995 The must was pressed and I just racked from the press buckets.

PH is now 3.6 and TA is .675

Think I may need to add a bit more acid to this one..