That's a good point... I've been doing that when testing TA but not for
PH or Brix/SG. For that I just spin the hydrometer to get the bubbles off
it. It seems to give me a pretty good idea of where the gravity is.

Do I need to boil-off the CO2 when doing PH and hydrometer readings?

-Paul

"Richard Kovach" wrote in message
om...
Paul,

You're aware that you need to heat and cool samples of actively
fermenting wine (to drive off CO2) in order to get accurate pH and
acid measurements? I'm guessing you are, but I don't think anyone
else mentioned it in this thread so I thought I should just in case...

Cheers,
Richard

"Paul S. Remington" wrote in message
. ..
Noted... Smells pleasantly fruity with a nice balance between sweet and
tart. It makes me nervous to mess with it too much.

-Paul

"Tom S" wrote in message
.. .

"Paul S. Remington" wrote in message
...
Update: Added an additional 20.4g (40.8g total) of potassium
bicarbonate. New Ph reading is: 3.22.

Leave it alone now. It's not a good idea to get too "busy" with
wines.

Tom S

I make my chardonnay without MF or oak. I use montrachet yeast which
does cut malo. acid and tends to prevent MF. After 6 days primary I
rack it to a keg and don't touch it until spring. It seems to have a
mild butterly taste, but still has a nice fruit taste.
Tim
Hello Paul,

I suggest you use a bit of patience here and let your wine ferment out
before making any further adjustments to your pH/acidity. I believe
dissolved CO2 from fermentation can cause the pH of the juice to decrease
which effect will be eliminated after fermentation and degassing. As far as
ML is concerned, I would again wait until fermentation is complete to
determine if you even want to induce ML. After many years of drinking wines
from California especially, I personally have come to prefer non-ML
chardonnay. It seems to age much better than the heavily oaked and buttery
(from ML) versions. Additionally, wines with a high malic acid content can
give a disagreeably strong diacetyl (buttery) aroma if they undergo ML
fermentation. If you decide you want to prevent ML altogether and try a
more steely dry chardonnay style, use a very small amount of oak and hit it
with 500ppm lysozyme.

By the way, if you continue your winemaking endeavors and obtain white juice
as you described in the future (low sugar, high acid), consider making a
sparkling wine. That juice would have made a fine base for a sparkler!

Good Luck and CHEERS!

Aaron

"Paul S. Remington" wrote in message
...
WOW! I wish you warned me about the CO2 expulsion. I just added
20.4g
of KHCO3 and holy jumpin' Jesus!!! I was greeted with an explosion of CO2
that send foam flowing like a volcano out of the top of the demijohn!
Luckily, I had a towelI use to cover the demijohn during the day next to
me... it avoided a serious mess!

I recalibrated my PH meter and before adding the KHCO3 the new reading
was 3.08, much lower than I previously stated. The PH is now at around
3.15. Should I hit it with more? I don't know how long it takes to
"hold"
after adding it to the wine. I took a sample after about 5 minutes
following the addition (and cleanup). :-)

What is your recommendation?

As for the bacteria, I was following the manufacturer's
recommendation,
which was to wait until after fermentation has completed. Doesn't this
have
to do with the development of Diacetyl or competing with nutrients,
something? I plan to add Fermaid K after an 8 brix drop. Is there a risk
to adding the bacteria earlier? I can add it now... I guess I'm following
"the book," since I'm new at this.

Thanks for sharing your experience...

-Paul


"Tom S" wrote in message
om...

"Paul S. Remington" wrote in message
...
Hi All,

I started fermenting 12 gallons of Chardonnay juice yesterday and
have
a
concern I wanted to pose to the experts of the group.

The juice was purchased with the following readings:

Brix: 19.2 TA: 1.125 PH: 2.95

I added 4.5lbs of Dextrose and 61.2g of potassium bicarbonate. My
Brix
reading using a hydrometer differed slightly than that of the
vineyard,
so
I
followed my gut and relied on my readings. cringe Anyway... after
all
my
bench trials and additions, I ended up with the following readings:

Brix: 24 TA: .95 PH: 3.28 SG: 1.098 Potential Alcohol:
13.5%

It's been about 30 hours since pitching the yeast (CY-3079) and
it's
bubbling away quite nicely, to say the least. (Blew half the vodka
out
of
the airlock overnight!)

A little while ago I took the following measurements:

Brix: 21.5 PH: 3.17

I'm concerned about the PH... I assume it's dropping due to an
increase
in acidity. My aim was to get the PH between 3.2 and 3.4 so when I
pitch
the ML bacteria (Enoferm Alpha) the PH will be within an acceptable
range.
As it is now, if the acidity continues to rise and the PH falls below
3.1,
I
have a problem.

I didn't want to have to add more potassium bicarbonate after
fermentation. What should I do??? Does anyone have any
recommendations
or
will the levels balance-out? It's fermenting rapidly. Within a week
I
would assume I'll have to pitch the bacteria.

If I were you, I'd hit it with ML _now_! I might also bump it a little
more
with KHCO3, but you're pretty close to reasonable numbers now. Early
inoculation for ML takes advantage of the heat spike in the early stages
of
fermentation; ML likes it _warm_. With luck, the ML will complete soon
after the primary. Add Leucofood and Leucovit if you have them, and
stir
the lees once in awhile while the ML is still active.

Tom S

To be honest, I'm not sure about pH readings. I think I used to
heat/cool my samples with my Checker meter and noticed a difference
between before and after heating/cooling. That was way back when,
when the damn thing actually worked, which was before I went into
limbo waiting for my new pHep5 to arrive (ETA apparently unknown at
this point, still waiting for a reply from Presque Isle)

:-(((

For hydrometer readings, I've always done exactly what you described
and have never heard of anyone heating/cooling the sample first. I
don't think there's enough CO2 to really effect that, but it
apparently causes some kind of chemical mayhem with the way the other
tests react with the ions in the solution in measuring pH/TA.

Richard

"Paul S. Remington" wrote in message .. .
That's a good point... I've been doing that when testing TA but not for
PH or Brix/SG. For that I just spin the hydrometer to get the bubbles off
it. It seems to give me a pretty good idea of where the gravity is.

Do I need to boil-off the CO2 when doing PH and hydrometer readings?

-Paul

"Richard Kovach" wrote in message
om...
Paul,

You're aware that you need to heat and cool samples of actively
fermenting wine (to drive off CO2) in order to get accurate pH and
acid measurements? I'm guessing you are, but I don't think anyone
else mentioned it in this thread so I thought I should just in case...

Cheers,
Richard

"Paul S. Remington" wrote in message
. ..
Noted... Smells pleasantly fruity with a nice balance between sweet and
tart. It makes me nervous to mess with it too much.

-Paul

"Tom S" wrote in message
.. .

"Paul S. Remington" wrote in message
...
Update: Added an additional 20.4g (40.8g total) of potassium
bicarbonate. New Ph reading is: 3.22.

Leave it alone now. It's not a good idea to get too "busy" with
wines.

Tom S

Yeah... I agree, Richard. Myself, I never feel totally comfortable
boiling a sample before testing unless I know it's really necessary.
With the hydrometer, it seems to me boiling it will evaporate some of
the water and concentrate the solids in suspension. I could be wrong,
but wouldn't that affect the hydrometer reading?

Like you, I just spin the darn thing. I have watched it and noticed
that without spinning, it will change the reading by about SG .2 or
so. I give it a spin and it returns to its previous reading. No
biggie...

I have a pH electrode probe meter that's about $29 from eBay. I
_just_ received comparitive pH test results of my wine from a
reputable testing laboratory. My pH meter was calibrated and the wine
was not boiled to remove CO2. My meter read exactly 3.40. The lab
read it twice on two seperate reference meters. The meters were
calibrated prior to each reading. The first read 3.41; the second
read 3.48. The average is 3.45. The lab representative said it's not
necessary to boil the sample prior to doing the pH reading.

-Paul

(Richard Kovach) wrote in message . com...
To be honest, I'm not sure about pH readings. I think I used to
heat/cool my samples with my Checker meter and noticed a difference
between before and after heating/cooling. That was way back when,
when the damn thing actually worked, which was before I went into
limbo waiting for my new pHep5 to arrive (ETA apparently unknown at
this point, still waiting for a reply from Presque Isle)

:-(((

For hydrometer readings, I've always done exactly what you described
and have never heard of anyone heating/cooling the sample first. I
don't think there's enough CO2 to really effect that, but it
apparently causes some kind of chemical mayhem with the way the other
tests react with the ions in the solution in measuring pH/TA.

Richard

"Paul S. Remington" wrote in message .. .
That's a good point... I've been doing that when testing TA but not for
PH or Brix/SG. For that I just spin the hydrometer to get the bubbles off
it. It seems to give me a pretty good idea of where the gravity is.

Do I need to boil-off the CO2 when doing PH and hydrometer readings?

-Paul

"Richard Kovach" wrote in message
om...
Paul,

You're aware that you need to heat and cool samples of actively
fermenting wine (to drive off CO2) in order to get accurate pH and
acid measurements? I'm guessing you are, but I don't think anyone
else mentioned it in this thread so I thought I should just in case...

Cheers,
Richard

"Paul S. Remington" wrote in message
. ..
Noted... Smells pleasantly fruity with a nice balance between sweet and
tart. It makes me nervous to mess with it too much.

-Paul

"Tom S" wrote in message
.. .

"Paul S. Remington" wrote in message
...
Update: Added an additional 20.4g (40.8g total) of potassium
bicarbonate. New Ph reading is: 3.22.

Leave it alone now. It's not a good idea to get too "busy" with
wines.

Tom S

Paul S. Remington wrote "I never feel totally comfortable
boiling a sample before testing unless I know it's really necessary.
With the hydrometer, it seems to me boiling it will evaporate some of
the water and concentrate the solids in suspension. I could be wrong,
but wouldn't that affect the hydrometer reading?"

You're exactly right. If you boil your sample it will get rid of CO2
dissolved in the wine. If you boil long enough it will also get rid of some
of the wine volume...thus changing everything. If you really want an
accurate %TA reading, following a boil, you should dilute the sample with
distilled water back to the original volume. Then test as usual. For
specific gravity readings I think it's sufficient to just spin the
hydrometer to cause CO2 bubbles to release. Then take your reading.

Bill Frazier
Olathe, Kansas

"Paul S. Remington" wrote in message
om...
Yeah... I agree, Richard. Myself, I never feel totally comfortable
boiling a sample before testing unless I know it's really necessary.
With the hydrometer, it seems to me boiling it will evaporate some of
the water and concentrate the solids in suspension. I could be wrong,
but wouldn't that affect the hydrometer reading?

For SG readings it isn't necessary to drive off the dissolved gases. It's
only an approximate reading after all.

To drive off dissolved gases, it's not necessary to _boil_ the wine/must.
Just bringing it to the boiling point is sufficient.

Tom S