Ph question

I have cabernet franc wine made from Finger Lakes grapes. At the crusher Ph was 3.35. After primary fermentation ,pressed at -.5 brix, Ph was 3.55. After press i added Enoferm Alpha mbr malo strain. Checked Ph after about 6 weeks or so and it is at 3.83. I'm assuming the jump is from the MLF. Wondering what type of an impact cold stabilizing will have on Ph. Should i try to bring the Ph down before cold stabilizing? I have not run TA tests. The wine tastes decent considering its age.

Reply to
Anthony J. Devitt
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Anthony, most of the pH change from 3.35 to 3.55 was probably due to potassium leaching from the skins into the liquid. Much of the pH change from 3.55 to 3.83 was probably due to malolactic fermentation. Going from a pH of 3.35 to 3.83 implies that your grapes contained much potassium and much malic acid.

During cold stabilization, the pH may go up, go down or stay the same. In general, pH will go down if the starting pH is less than about 3.6. It will increase if the starting pH is greater than 3.8 and it will stay about the same if the starting pH is 3.7.

Depending on TA and the taste, you may want to bring the pH down a bit before chilling the wine.

Lum Del Mar, California, USA

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Lum

Reply to
Anthony J. Devitt

Four grams of tartaric acid per gallon of wine may reduce the pH by about

0.1 unit. BUT, this is only rough guide and it may not be applicable to your wine. Be sure and test a small quantity of your wine before making the total addition. Lum Del Mar, California, USA
Reply to
Lum

Also, at this stage go more by the taste than numbers because you might have to dump in a lot of tartaric acid to get the pH to better levels for cold stabilization. If the wine had a lot of malic acid, there might not be that much tartaric to begin with, so there might be no need for cold stabilization, really.

Pp

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pp

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Anthony J. Devitt

Pp

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pp

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