Growing grapes and making wine in Bellevue
Posted in enology, mead, measurement & testing, winemaking on Feb 8th, 2008
I talked about five of my meads yesterday, and how I might decide if they were ready to bottle. I looked at clarity and specific gravity (SG) because I didn’t want the mead throwing off sediment or fermenting in the bottle. I tasted, probably the most important test of any wine or mead, and I […]
Posted in enology, mead, measurement & testing, storage and aging, tasting, winemaking on Feb 7th, 2008
I looked in on five meads yesterday to see if they were ready to bottle. I was looking for clarity, I tasted them to see if they were pleasant to drink, and I measured the specific gravity (SG), pH, and titratable acidity (TA).
Name
SG
pH
TA (g/L)
2004 Plain Mead
1.001
3.05
5
2005 Apple Mead
0.995
3.39
5.2
2006 Experiment (boiled)
1.000
3.27
6
2006 Experiment (no heat)
1.000
3.29
5.3
2006 Grape Mead
1.000
3.51
5+
Ready […]
Posted in enology, equipment, measurement & testing, winemaking, winemaking clubs on Feb 5th, 2008
A man, his contraption, and a different way
I learned of a different way to test for titratable acidity, the other day. At the last meeting of the Puget Sound Amatuer Wine and Beer Makers club, Don Proctor demonstrated this method using an odd looking device. He used ordinary baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) to neutralize the […]
Posted in enology, tomato wine, winemaking on Dec 27th, 2007
It looked like fermentation was winding down, so I drew a sample for testing. The sample had some dissolved CO2 in it, and that can skew my tests in two ways. It can give rise to carbonic acid, which will push the titratable acidity (TA) higher. It can also make it look like there is […]
Posted in enology, mead, winemaking on Dec 3rd, 2007
Making mead from cherries
I’ve often thought about making “second wine” using honey instead of sugar. Also called “false wine,” it’s made from the pomace of newly fermented wine by adding water, sugar and acid. I like honey, water, and acid (mead) all by itself, so using honey instead of sugar should be an improvement. That’s […]
Posted in cherry wine, enology, mead, winemaking on Nov 30th, 2007
Making red wine from cherries
I made cherry wine, in June 2006 and 2007, like a red wine from grapes. I crushed the fruit, adjusted the sugar and acid, and pitched the yeast. The sugar and acid profile of cherries is very different from that of grapes, so “adjusting the sugar and acid” is a much […]
Posted in apple wine, enology, winemaking on Nov 19th, 2007
I racked my apple wine on 11/15/07. It analyzed out as:
Specific Gravity (SG): 0.996, pH: 3.56, Titratable Acidity (TA): 7 g/L
So it had fermented out in less than ten days, but the thing that surprised me was the TA. It rose from 5.5 to 7 g/L when I was expecting it to drop. The wine […]
Posted in enology, equipment, maintenance & cleaning on Nov 14th, 2007
I racked and measured four batches the other day, and it gave me the opportunity to size up my new buffer solution. I recorded TA values for three of those batches while I was still using my old buffer solution to calibrate my pH meter, and they shouldn’t have changed much. Here are the data:
Name
Old […]
How much acid?
I looked in on my mead the other day. It was clearing and had thrown some sediment. It was dry, with a specific gravity of 0.996. The pH, at 3.39, was low enough to protect the mead, but the titratable acidity was only 3.5 g/L. Titration will overstate the amount of acid in […]
Posted in enology, equipment, maintenance & cleaning on Nov 7th, 2007
What is a buffer solution?
You need to calibrate your pH meter for it to work properly, but to do that, you need to immerse it in a solution of known pH. Buffer solutions are the way out of that little chicken and egg problem. These are made of precisely measured ingredients that combine to form […]