A few weeks ago (when was it Chuck?) Joe, Chuck and I got together for a day of barrel cleaning, racking of the 2007 Syrah, and bottling of our 2006 Cabernets. Things didn’t go as planned. All of it could have been prevented by a little work done a few days ahead. Here is what happened [...]
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Well this took a long time to post. Our pressing day was fun, long and almost didn’t happen. The first problem was that the press was awfully small for our volumes, the second problem was that the press bleed valve would not close on the bladder press. We also believe that the pressure gauge was [...] Everything is registering 0 Brix. I hope waiting until next Sunday to press isn’t too long of an extended maceration. Here is the final [...] I spoke with our winemaker friend about the 5 gallons of Cabernet we lost to acetobacter infection. One of his solutions was to save it until next year’s crush and throw it into the must when it at it’s peak fermentation (15 B). In his words, The yeast of the new fermentation will decimate [...] The Cabernet is still winning, with Merlot second and Syrah a distant third.
I transfered the “Gardner’s Block” Cabernet into one of the large, white fermenters. Its cap was almost to the top of the smaller one and I had to constantly punch it down to keep the skins on the juice. Sorry, Chuck, I should have listened [...] Things are roiling away, lots of CO2 and great smells. I am tracking temperature and Brix. The Cabernet continues to be the most vigorous. Click on the thumbnail to see a confusing chart. I am going to try to improve it as time permits. We should see temperatures go up correlated to sugar dropping, then sugar [...] While checking my pants pockets before laundering I discovered a 5g packet of SO2. Oops, that was supposed to go into the 2007 Syrah must with the other 5g packet. So I added it. I also added 2 grams of EPMS (Effervescent Potassium Metabisulfite) (1g of true SO2) to the 2006 PMR and 2006 “Gardner’s Block” Cabernet. Plus [...] Phoebe and I picked 7 lbs., 8 oz. of Cabernet from our single vine. I foot-stomped it and hand pressed using a colander and stainless mixing bowl yielding just shy of 2 liters of juice at 24.5ºB. I pitched a little of the extra D21/Fermaid K slurry into it to make our [...] I made 100ºF slurries for all the yeast cultures and various additives as listed after the jump and pitch the yeast in all three batches on 10/4/07 at 3:00 PM. As of this morning all te cultures were cooking along, the cabernet being the most robust. I punched down once this morning and will continue three times a day. |
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