The Selection International - Australian Shiraz kit I started calls for the first racking Step 2) at 1.01 or less SG. Today was the day and everything went fine. The numbers were:
Temperature 76°F SG 1.001 pH 3.27 TA 0.5%
I know that pH and TA are meaningless when doing a kit like this and I have no intention of deviating from the provided instructions. I did the measurement for my own curiousity. That, and perhaps for future reference if I go off the deep end and do something without a kit. I'm a long way off from that, since this is my third go at making wine. I am speaking there of wine from grapes. My 2-gallon batch of pomegranate will be bottled by next weekend. Stand by for a report on that. Right now I'm studying the fine art (or craft) of back-sweetening. Anybody have a suggestion for an SG (or TA) for a slightly sweet wine? Hmmm, what if I went to the market and picked up a bottle of Muskat Cannelli -- my wife likes the sweetness of that.... or perhaps a Chardonay?? You will note in the numbers given above I included pH and TA. I have to thank someone on this forum who's name escapes me now for the tip on using a pH meter in conjunction with the acid titration kit. My original problems were the super-subjectivity required for determining "when the color stops changing" when doing the titration, combined with my total ignorance having never done it nor seen it demonstrated before. I used up a lot of titration chemicals playing with the scheme. The kit suggests diluting red wines with distilled water to make the color change easier to note. I used a number of dilution ratios of water to wine with the pH meter and to my surprise, the end results were the same up to and including 20::1. That is as far as I went. So, whoever my mystery benefactor is -- Thanks, I owe you a bottle of Mojave Spirits, Pomegranate Wine.
Happy cellaring,
Casey