pH titration for TA

You can use either method, with good results, but you should use the pH meter _or_ an indicator solution for both measuring the titer of your standard NaOH and your juice/wine samples. IOW, don't standardize the NaOH with phenolphthalein and run your juice with the pH meter. Either use one method or the other, but don't mix methods.

It's not too late to correct that pH with tartaric, and I would if I were you. Bring it down to ~3.4 or so now, or it'll end up in the 4s by the end of ML. Don't mind the TA right now. You'll chill out the excess as bitartrate after fermentation.

BTW, if you like oak but you're not using a barrel, I'd suggest putting an extraction bag filled with StaVin "beans" (or the oak chips of your choice) into the primary. You can rinse them at pressing time and dump them back into the carboys for bulk aging, and add more if you like.

The action of the fermentation/yeast tends to smooth out the rough flavors and makes for better integration of the oak in the wine.

Tom S

Thanks Tom,

Can you give me a rough quantity of Tartaric to add?

I'll try the oak bag thing. Can't hurt.

Dan

Pull a sample of juice, say 1 liter. Add 1 gram of tartaric acid to it, mix it well to dissolve it and check the pH. If that gets you to 3.6 pH, add another gram and recheck the pH. Repeat as necessary. That'll give you an idea how much tartaric it'll take per liter of juice to get you to your target pH. Then scale the amount up for the entire batch. 250 pounds of grapes should give you about 80 liters of juice, give or take. Figure out how many grams of tartaric that amounts to and add 2/3 of that to the must. Stir it in very thoroughly and measure the pH of the must. It should still be higher than your target pH. Add more tartaric until you reach your target pH. The idea is to have a good idea of the approximate amount of acid to add rather than just dumping it in. Good luck!

Tom S

Speaking of 'dumping it in'...

I performed another 'stupid winemaker trick' the other day. I had a Stueben with an initial brix of ~12 and TA of ~13g/l. It had already begun fermenting.

I corrected the acid down to 9g/l and a pH of 3.2.

I calculated the amount of cane needed to get to 21 brix. 5 pounds. I dumped it in too fast; what a mess.. I guess it's around 24 brix now...

:o)

Regards, Joe

You think _that's_ bad? You should have seen the result when a cellar rat at a local winery dumped a 50 pound bag of tartaric acid straight into a

3500 gallon tank of actively fermenting Sauvignon Blanc. I had my back to it at the time. It sounded like a jet taking off! When I turned to see what all the noise was there was a geyser of foam gushing out of the manway, over the catwalk, down the side of the tank and onto the floor. What a mess! And what a loss. Must've been a couple of hundred gallons, at least. The dry tartaric had nucleated the supersaturated CO2 in solution to all come out at once. Wish I had it on video...

Tom S

I only had a small amount of Tartaric around at the time, which in my thumbnail estimations, was not enough to over do it, so I dumped it in, about 2 tablespoons. The resulting pH is still a little spotty after quite a bit of stirring and cap punching, but generally between

3.41 to 3.48 or so. Seems to be more at around 3.43 - 3.45. Not too bad. Its actively fermenting now so I'll leave it as is.

I added 5 ounces of medium toast French oak chips in nylon bags. Temperature around 25 C (77 F). Crossing my fingers, my last Cabernet suffered from H2S. The resulting wine is drinkable, but young in the bottel, but no award winner by a long shot. I have added two doses of nutrient so far, about 3 tablespoons total so far. Don't want H2S.

Thanks for your help.

Dan

Hehe,

Beware the FROTH MONSTERS!

Stir the bottom while punching down and rack once away from the heavy lees, a couple of hours after you press. You shouldn't have an H2S problem then.

Tom S

I know you do lees recovery, but we all aren't so fortunate as to have a dedicated Maytag centrifuge. ;-)

Won't you lose a lot of wine in the loosely settled lees if you rack that soon?

Brian

The volume of gross lees will be considerable, but not that much more than if you were to wait a few weeks. Red wine, hot off the press, settles remarkably fast.

This way you'll avoid the stinkies for _sure_ in the majority of the batch, and I didn't say you should throw away the gross lees. You can still let it settle and further increase your yield, but if it develops a stink at least the majority of your wine will be clean.

Tom S

This is good advice and is what I have been doing the last couple years now. The "heavies" settle real fast after pressing and I do my racking and topping outside where I press before moving the carboys into the basement. I put all the heavy lees in a carboy and after about a week siphon off some more clear wine.