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 [...]
Chuck and I bottled about 15 gallons of Merlot in the morning before pressing. We ended up with 6 cases, 9 bottles and a magnum.
I just got the rep-bottling lab results on the 2006 Merlot:
Free SO2: 17 mg/L
Total SO2: 33 mg/L
I added another 2g to bring it up to a target of 40 mg/L
Oh and I racked it into the beer keg, ready for bottling!
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 chart:
The Cabernet is still winning, with Merlot second and Syrah a distant third.
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 [...]
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” [...]
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 [...]
2006 PMR Cabernet
pH
3.79
Titratable Acidity
0.695
g/100mL
Free SO2
0
Total SO2
0
Glucose + Fructose
163
mg/100mL
Malic Acid
10
mg/100mL
Volatile Acidity
0.106
g/100mL
2006 “Gardner’s Block” Cabernet
pH
3.84
Titratable Acidity
0.624
g/100mL
Free SO2
0
Total [...]
We added dry ice to the must to cold soak it at a temperature at lease 50ºF. Here are the cooling numbers:
Merlot
Cabernet
G&M Syrah
10/1/07 2:00 PM
63
64
72
10/1/07 6:00 PM
38
41
55
10/2/07 1:45 PM
57
58
62
Hopefully we can keep it cool. The garage gets [...]