Wise Acres Winery

Must temperatures of 80ºF in both fermentors. Thick caps this morning.

I could smell it faintly from the top of the stairs this morning. After 24 hours the little bugs are very active. There is a very nice blanket of CO2 and a firm cap. I knocked a spider into the must by accident when punching down. She (don’t female spiders eat male ones?) hit the CO2 blanket and was instantly out cold. (Yes, I scooped her out.)

Must temperatures:
small = 73ºF
larger = 71.5ºF

73-75ºF air temperature around fermentors.

The 3.5 lbs of Cabernet from my backyard vine was fermented and pressed out (using a hop bag and my hands) into about 1.25 liters. Better than I thought, I might actually get a whole bottle.

The cold soak was at an average of 62ºF in the garage. I added a portable heater to warm things up for fermentation.

I Hydrated 20g of Lalvin 71B-112 yeast in warm water for 15 minutes, then added it to the two fermentors.

Now the fun part starts.

I forgot to add SO2 yesterday so this morning I add about 50 ppm.

Formulas are here:
http://www.tomatoweb.com/~shw/winery/chem.htm

I thought this year’s vintage was going to be limited to the 3.5 lbs of Cabernet I picked form my lone vine, but at the last minute I got a hold of some nice Merlot grapes from a vineyard outside of Geyserville. I picked the grapes on Monday and pressed them today with my brother-in law, Tom. The grapes were in nice shape, not mold or mildew. A small percentage were starting to raisin, hopefully that will add some character.

Here are the numbers:

26 Brix (maybe a little over)
pH = 3.68
TA = .40% (This worries me a little, but we’ll see how things settle out after fermentation)

I am cold-soaking them until signs of natural fermentation appear, them I will innoculate with commercial yeast.