Sugar check
Posted in 2012 MV Syrah on Wednesday, November 14th, 2012 by adminChecked with Clinitest…somewhere between 0.5% and 0.6%. Bubbling slowly. Also stirred the wine.
Sugar check
Posted in 2012 MV Syrah on Monday, November 12th, 2012 by adminClinitest measures 0.6%.
I had Vinquiry test it…here are the results.
Glucose + Fructose = 477 mg/100 ml. This is about 0.5%, close to the Clinitest measurement.
Still bubbling, but slowly. What a pain in the ass!
Sulphite test
Posted in 2010 Moaveni Vineyard Syrah, 2011 Moaveni Vineyard Rose of Zin, 2011 Moaveni Vineyard Syrah, 2011 Moaveni Vineyard Zinfandel on Monday, November 12th, 2012 by adminFree SO2 measurement results:
Rose: 7 mg/L
10 Syrah: 13 mg/L
11 Zin-60: 26 mg/L
11 Zin-30: 34 mg/L
11 Syrah: 25 mg/L
Making Port!
Posted in 2012 MV Fortified Syrah on Sunday, November 11th, 2012 by adminActually, fortified wine! We can’t really call it port unless it is from Oporto!
Shahrokh and I decided to make port with some of the late harvest syrah.
We decided to make two 25 l carboys of port.
We need some alcohol…can’t buy grape spirits. Tim Pattersen in Home Winemaking for Dummies recommends Everclear, so I called Bottle Barn. They had it, but suggested Diesel as a cheaper alternative. Since both are 75% ethanol, not much difference.
We pulled juice from the ongoing ferment…22.5 l from each bin, at 7.5 brix on the hydrometer. With a starting brix of 28, that should correspond to 9.0 brix and 10.4% alc. The acids should be at the initial 4.8 g/l + 0.5 that we added = 5.3 g/l. We could be way off if the juice yield is way off, as I assumed 70 gallons of wine.
Here is the first blend calculation:
| Volume | sugar | alc | acid | |
| Juice | 22.5 l | 9.0 brix | 10.4% | 5.3 g/l |
| Diesel | 2.5 l | 0 brix | 75% | 0 g/l |
| Final | 25 l | 8.1 brix | 16.9% | 4.8 g/l |
Update Monday: The port is bubbling still!. So the alcohol of almost 17% did not kill the yeast. That is not completely surprising; port is normally near 20% alcohol. So Shahrokh racked the port off the gross lees. When done, he was short just a little more that 1 l per carboy. How convenient! So he added another liter of Diesel to each carboy, plus topped off with more juice.
Here is the second blend calculation:
| Volume | sugar | alc | acid | |
| Port | 24.0 l | 8.1 brix | 16.9% | 4.8 g/l |
| Diesel | 1.0 l | 0 brix | 75% | 0 g/l |
| Final | 25 l | 7.8 brix | 19.2% | 4.6 g/l |
That should do it until we can get all the numbers tested and see where we are at!
Also added 70 ppm sulphites…70ppm @ 6.6 gallon = 30 mL 10% SO2 solution
It will definitely need more acidity…probably another 2g/l! And maybe more sugar.
The plan is to put it into the 50 l oak barrel we have in the cellar. It will benefit greatly from time in a barrel.