Punching, But Not Drunk

October 6, 2010

Kept the same punching schedule as before, with the same measurement time.  The stats:

Temp 76

pH 3.57

Brix 5.5

I was really worried about the temperature rising too high if we kept the must in the garage (hence the short-lived must-in-the-bathroom experiment), but the volume of liquid really seems to hold the temperature fairly well.  The garage faces west, so it gets the full afternoon sun and warms up quite a bit, but so far so good.

pH was creeping upward again, so I added 3 more tsps of tartaric to get it back down.  By the way, the reason you add the tartaric so early on to keep the pH low is that you give it more time to mix and blend with the rest of the ingredients and wash out that tart taste a little bit.  Chris, in his first attempt, added tartaric very late in the process and his wine this year is really very tart.  It's not bad, but it's certainly not a characteristic that's supposed to be in the wine.  A fault, to put it in wine terms.

Brix again is dropping like a brick (hee hee--I made a funny), but I'm much less worried about that.  Though at this rate, it looks like I'm pressing this weekend.

The color is kind of maroon, and it's very cloudy from all the skins and other sediment that's still floating around.  It smells sweet, but the taste has shifted from sweet or tart to what can only be described as bitter.  This is to be expected, since the sugars are being eaten up and the sediment itself is quite bitter, but it's a huge change from where things were yesterday (just 24 short hours prior).  It's pretty cool how this is progressing.

I did also let Brian punch the cap for the first time.  His look of glee disturbed me a bit.  I should watch the kitties.

Next up:  how much more tartaric will I add to this stuff??